#538 – Vastus lateralis

Am I the only one that got in trouble for going up the down escalator?

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45 thoughts on “#538 – Vastus lateralis”

  1. PsychoDuck says:

    Seriously, they put those big huge step machines on display, and people just stand on them. What the hell, man?

    The Duck Has Spoken.

  2. Sciuridae says:

    When I do that, even more than security staff on malls, I get yelled at by mothers whose kids try to do the same I’m doing.

  3. Torg says:

    Are you saying that’s not what they’re for?!

  4. AdmiralMemo says:

    I did that once and got almost up it, but somebody wanted to come down, so I had to ride back down with him.

  5. MaskedMan says:

    You know, I think Biff is one of the very few people smart enough to use those stairclimbers as they were intended. So, of course, the mental midgets toss him out of the mall. Why’d they bother building them in the first place, eh?

    OK, only slightly more seriously – that’s actually practical. That’s almost un-Bifflike! Heresy!

  6. JippenFaddoul says:

    I used to work in the mall. One of my favorite things to do was slide down the escalator rails after closing time. Almost slid into a guard once. They just laughed and told me it would be my own fault if I got hurt.

  7. Big_Willie_Styles says:

    I always wanted to exercise using the down escalator and go up it. Or down the up escalator…

  8. C4Pottery says:

    I never got in trouble, the mall was never crowded. This one time in a theater, I rode to two feet off the ground by clinging to the rail and hanging off the side. Likely the most dangerous thing I ever did. I would do it again in a second if I did not develop a fear of heights later.

  9. A friend of mine got all the way to the top of one of those repeatedly once. I myself get vertigo even going the right direction, I wouldn’t risk doing it backwards. I also get vertigo on regular stairs, but in no other situations (maybe the top of an unsupported ladder).

  10. Chuck says:

    I ran up the down escalator at the Los Angeles Convention Center to get rid of the jitters before my Academic Decathlon Competition. It was really fun, but it made my stomach hurt. That thing was huge.

  11. Chris says:

    I always wanted to slide down the space between two escalators, that seems much more fun to me.

  12. The Dustin says:

    All this talk about going up the down escalator, But none of you have ever experienced the pain (and humiliation) of tumbling down the up escalator for 6 minutes before someone helps you. I didn’t break anything but I bruised pretty badly and not prefer stairs that don’t move.

  13. Psymon says:

    When I was much younger, I stepped onto the down escalator, and realized the rest of my family wasn’t coming with, so I tried running back up (I tended to get separated fairly easily, but they never put a leash on me that I heard about or remember). I never ran up the whole thing, though that sounds like something I might try nowadays if the crowd was thin enough–I haven’t seen an escalator for a few years now, though, but I really like climbing up stairs.

  14. Danielle says:

    Damnit Torg, I was going to say that. I actually did this yesterday. I still think it’s exercise week. That’s exercise. It so is.

  15. BlueKitsune says:

    I don’t see the point in Biff working out if hes just going to lose his arms and legs again eventually… Speaking of escalators I’ve always wanted to just sit on that black rail thing and ride that up lol

  16. brickface says:

    I actually did that once, people coming down got mad at me, especially that guy with the crutches.:(

  17. The Dustin says:

    Riding the handrail up makes me think of Mary Poppins… but then it is 3:30 AM and I need sleep. I’ve seen that movie again too recently to not remember it. I saw it this year. Tap Dancing Penguins!

  18. Heinrich says:

    i’ve been to this place that has these things that are a cross between escalators and conveyor belts – like conveyor belts at an angle. a guy i know went down the up on his skateboard.

    i’ve always wanted to hang onto the outside of a railing for an up escalator, but i haven’t wanted to deal with people trying to enforce the taboo. damn taboos. ):

  19. Adam_Y says:

    Biff’s trackies are ace… custom yellow Addidas? That’s very ‘on trend’.

  20. sakanagai says:

    I don’t think I’ve ever seen a down escalator that moves fast enough to use as a climbing machine. Unless you have really short legs. Or have only one leg. Or are in a wheelchair. In which case you should stick with the elevator. Or the jetpacks hidden behind their seats that they CLAIM don’t exist but we know they’re there. Darned cripples. I’ll show them. They wake up one morning and they are like “Whoa! I have two legs again!” They probably won’t even think too hard about where the other one(s) came from, either. They can’t use their wheelchairs or their canes or walkers anymore because of the combination of societal pressure and restless leg syndrome. I’ll get to them eventually. They may get home after a long day and watch some infomercial about Rascal scooters then dig through their attics to find it: their chair. It’s no La-Z-Boy, but it’s their chair. Then they accidentally hit the ignition switch. My point is that escalators are slow.

  21. bubo2000 says:

    we (my boyfriend and me) do this sometimes when we’re bored. we climb up the descending stairs and then run down the ascending ones. and agian. and once more. people think we’re crazy and sometimes the lazy ladies using elevators to spare some steps get irritated :P. but biff is right – it’s a great excercise :)!

  22. OHNOComix says:

    I did this once with my brother when I was maybe thirteen. When we reached the top, there was a security guard who escorted us out of the mall. We of course snuck right back in through a Hornes department store.

  23. Envi says:

    me and my freiend used to do that all the time, until we did it in front of a security guard and got ourselves a call home and a free escort out. seriously, i don’t know what the problem is, it’s not like it’s somthing hugely dangerous, or even slightly dangerous.

  24. Darkwish says:

    I’ve never gotten in trouble for running the wrong direction on an escalator (great workout though). I HAVE gotten in trouble for putting a slinky on the up escalator though… (it’s very hard to get the timing/spacing right). I probably wouldn’t have gotten in trouble if it wasn’t in the middle of the holiday shopping rush. >:)

  25. Eleanor says:

    I’ve never been able to do it, the only escalator we see are the really crowded ones. I’ve never wanted to ride up the banister either, because the ones awhere we are have glass walls at the top and there’d be no way to get over the banister from hanging off the side before you fell two storeys.

    I have always wanted to go sliding down the shiny bit between the escalators at the tube station though.

    Great comic as usual Chris.

  26. no name says:

    HAHA! Biff with Striped Pants Week lives on! Is anybody with me on this theory, or am I standing alone?

  27. Brokenbridge says:

    @Dustin- Did you get the thing about falling down an escalator from Demitri Martin?

  28. Speakerblast says:

    I too have attempted a bold run up the escalator. All was going well, the wind was in my hair as i tore up at unimaginably low speeds. Then, as i reached the top i was going too fast and the loss of resistance caused me to totally wipe out. Suffice to say my friends found it humuorous. <-(You can tell I’m Canadian from all the U’s in that word)

  29. Jon M. says:

    My friends and I tried to go up the down escalator when we were on our eight grade field trip to a dam. Security was not amused.

  30. JAD says:

    I did it twice, once going upstairs and once downstairs, which I found a bit more difficult. Years ago. Recently I did it again, but…

    It was funnier at 16. Heh.

    BTW, I found your strip in a webcomic a couple of months ago and have been reading them all before commenting. Biff is great, keep on. Also, ¿have you thought on making more shirt designs or such?

  31. Chris says:

    @JAD – Hey thanks for reading. 🙂
    Yeah, I do have a couple concepts for new shirts. Nothing is finalized yet. I will PROBABLY release one of them in the next few months. Especially if people keep asking questions like this. 🙂

  32. trevor says:

    I’ve always wanted to do that, so it’s not really as funny to me, as it is…well, true doesn’t seem like the right word.

  33. The Dustin says:

    @Brokenbridge- No, I seriously fell down the up escalator. I’ve always been accident prone. Have you ever seen those round pedestal things at grocery store that are covered in potted plants? When I was eight I wasn’t watching where I was going and hit one of those… covered in potted Cacti… while running.

  34. Haywire says:

    I used to love doing this when I was a kid. I sometimes did get in trouble, though. =)

  35. 3davideo says:

    I happened to find this on CNN. More stuff you can do with escalators. http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2008/06/26/ac.360.shot.wednesday.cnn

  36. Gato says:

    Has anyone seen those videos of people lying on the railings and spinning?

  37. Fwtrump says:

    I have often wondered how much more damaging a fall would be to fall down an up escalator than to really try to run down one… Though I did go up a down escalator at one point when I was half-way down and realized that my family wasn’t going down with me. It also irks me when people go on the escalator and just stand there, no motion what-so-ever. For me, the escalator is not a restful climb or decent… Its a time saver machine that shortens the distance I actually have to travel to get from the first floor to the second floor. If you want to stand still, go in an elevator.

  38. bAT L. says:

    A friend and I did this at a mall, except it was down the up escalator. He joked to me about running down them and there was nobody around as far as we could see. I said “Oh man, when are we ever going to get this chance again?” and we started off down the escalator. Somehow, defying all physics, a security guard appeared at the bottom of the escalator to meet us. He said to us something along the lines of “You guys know what you just did wrong, right?” We said we knew exactly what we did, won’t happen again, nobody was around to see us or anything. The security guard let us go, but not without asking us if we ever saw anybody lose a finger in an escalator. My friend had, apparently, since he said to the guard that he did. I wasn’t there for that one!

    I forgot to mention that this was last year. We were both 24 when we did this, which is probably why the security guard guy didn’t call our parents or anything.

  39. Halo ChIef says:

    @ No Name: You’re standin alone dude

  40. Marmaduke says:

    When I was seven, my brother, my friend and I were shopping with my mother. She had to go into some store and told us to wait by the benches, which were right next to an elevator. Of course we start zipping up and down the wrong sides and a security guard catches us, asks us where our parents are. We’re seven and six and we’re freaking out because it’s a security guard, so we don’t say anything. He sighs and kicks us out of the mall. Ten minutes later my mom finds us outside after having a complete panic attack. We told her what happened and she tore a strip off the guard for kicking us out, and threatened to have him fired! We never did tell her about the escalator part. It was a good day for children everywhere.

  41. I once got kicked out of Reno Casino for letting slinkies loose on an escalator. Surprisingly alcohol was involved in the incident.

  42. TheGSE says:

    I run up the up escalator. I’m not a patient man…

  43. Alice Love says:

    I forgot what bus I took going home in Dearborn when I first started taking buses, so I spent hours in mall running up the down escalators. People stared at me weird and eventually a small crowd formed and one person was videotaping me. Finally security shooed me away and I fell asleep on one of the beds on display in the furniture area. ^_^

  44. HiveMindFury says:

    Back when I was eighteen (so a couple years ago), I was with some of my friends for one of their 18th birthdays (btw, I’m in England, and 18 is the legal drinking age), and we happened to head to the bowling alley to hang out and play some pool and stuff. In my town, the bowling alley (and the cinema) are at the top of a really long escalator (I’d guess about three stories high), and since it was fairly late there was no-one around, other than a few of the security staff. So me and my friend Nick decided that it would be a good idea to run up the down escalator, and would have without hesitation if it weren’t for security being there.

    So we thought what the hell, and asked them if it was okay. They said yes, probably because it was late, there was no-one around, and so there was no harm in it. While the others went up the up escalator, me and Nick stormed our way up the down escalator. We were nearly at the top when I tripped, given that I was wearing a big, heavy pair of New Rock boots. Caught myself on my hand (giving myself a nice little grill indentation on my palm that sort of hurt, but not too much), and finished the run, joining Nick who was laughing at my fall (as was I).

    I can’t remember for sure, but I think me and Nick ran down the up escalator on our way out as well.

    Oh, and did I mention? I was the only sober one in the group =P

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