Poor cherries.

Okay, seriously, if I am either one of these cherries in our relationship, cut me off. CUT ME OFF! This cartoon is heartbreaking.

An endlessly circulating belt of steps?! Terrifying.

My grandma told me once that she saw a girl get her fingers eaten by an escalator. I was ten and we were at West Edmonton Mall. "It was that one right over there," she said solemnly, and I watched her huge chin push deep into the folds of her neck as she nodded at an escalator thirty feet away. I remember staring through a crowd of people at that escalator and watching the moving stairs morph into a cold metal monster--with teeth. I pictured little girl fingers, squished in between the metal tracks, riding the escalator up and down with completely oblivious shoppers.
Who had to pick them up?
I never played on escalators again.
I'm still scared to death of them. Whenever I'm about to step off an escalator, I hesitate. My brain freezes up and I end up doing this awkward little hop over the last step. Then I think of that girl from the mall, and whether or not she still hides her disfigured hands in pockets and flower-print mini-gloves. Thanks, Grandma.