Running Up the Down Escalator

It was the spring of 1988. The First Assembly of God youth group I went to was attending a Bible Quiz in Dallas, Texas. My stepmom was one of the chaperones for the group, so she required me to participate on the Quiz team. Seeing as we traveled to other churches and saw beautiful scenery from our church van’s windows, I didn't mind.

As I stated, this trip was to Dallas, which is significant to this memory. Our youth director would let us run this trip around the Dallas Galleria after the quiz tournament, and we’d get to spend the night in a hotel. So this was going to be a true adventure for us.

We left our church mid-morning and arrived in Dallas around lunchtime. So the first thing we did was check into the hotel and freshen up. Then we went looking for a place to eat a big meal. When we finished eating, we headed to the Galleria.

Once at the mall, we split up into groups. I didn’t want to be with my stepmom, so I begged to be in the Assistant Youth Directors group because I knew it would be a fun group. My stepmom was relieved I did not want to be in her group, for she readily agreed. Everyone went their separate ways.

We visited several stores on the ground level and bought snacks from a candy vendor. We visited the second and third floors and the must-see Spencer’s and several music stores.

Halfway through the evening, our suitable role model chaperone made a boneheaded decision. He bragged about how they used to run up the down escalator when he was younger. He made it sound so cool, and two of the guys in our group dared him to do it. As he prepared to go up, I decided to go right behind him.

Everything was going great, too. Until I decided to look down at my feet, that is. Looking down, I saw the escalator steps moving in a completely different direction than my feet. I got dizzy and landed on my left knee. Throwing up my hand, I grabbed the loop at the back of the Assistant Youth director's pants and allowed him to pull me up to a standing position as he continued to run up the down escalator. Regaining my footing but not letting go, I continued up behind him.

The rest of the group was still coming up the escalator when we reached the top. Our chaperone asked if I was okay. I lied and told the youth pastor I was but needed to go to the restroom. So when the others joined us, we headed to the bathroom. I entered the woman’s bathroom and locked a stall, locking it behind me. I didn’t need to use the toilet; I wanted to see how bad my knee was. So, I pulled my pants down, sat on the commode, and looked at my knee.

It’s a good thing I was sitting down, too. My kneecap was 2 inches above where it should have been. I almost freaked out, but I knew one thing, I did not want to get into trouble with my stepmom, and my dad was not there with us, so I knew I needed to hide my injury. But I also knew I could not walk on my leg with my knee where it was. So I had to think of something.

I finally started massaging my kneecap and gently pushing it down, trying to get it to pop back into place. After what seemed like hours, I finally got it to go back in. Doing so made the pain even worse. I may have passed out for a moment, but I am unsure.

The fun of that night was over for me. All I wanted to do was to find a bench and sit. But I couldn’t complain because my stepmom wouldn’t do anything about it. At this point, I was ready to go home.

I hid my pain through the rest of the visit. On the way home, I got to thinking about it, and I decided not to tell my dad at all because I didn’t want my stepmom to get upset about it and say I was making things up to get my dad’s attention. So I decided it was best to keep my mouth shut. To this day, I’ve only told my husband about me running up the down escalator.