subway: taking lazy to a new level

There are a few of the subway stations that are pretty far underground, so you have to walk up or down a lot of stairs to get to them. At a few of the stations there are some escalators, some make sense while others just seem frivolous. When I make a trip to Home Depot, I get off at Lexington Ave. and the four ReAlLy long escalators I ride to get out, those are not frivolous; a feeling one understands a whole lot more when they are broken and you are walking up them.

There is a set of escalators in the Lower East Side, Delancey Street station I take to get to work. I used them the first time I went down there while I was exploring my commute options. After a few more trips, I realized the exits accessed by stairs got me closer to work and were a better option. Since then, I only used the escalator after a kickboxing intro class gave me a passionate, albeit brief, hatred for stairs.

Just the other day as I was entering the subway station, I heard this woman complaining about the escalator being broken. Profanities were flying out of her mouth even as she was breathlessly struggling with each step. Carrying extra weight does that huh? The stairs at that point are wide enough for about 2.5 normal sized people and she was taking up about 1.75 peoples worth of space, making it a tight squeeze to get past her, even for a skinny guy like myself.

My (may sound harsh) opinion is people who “need” to use escalators should take the stairs. Escalators should be used by people wanting to get up stairs quicker or are very sore from an exhausting work out. Also, escalators aren’t made (I don’t think) to handle the strain of four people who round out a ton by standing in a (very big) circle. In fact, I am guessing these quarter-pounder-with-extra-cheese-and-a-diet-coke... I mean, quarter-ton people (so easy to get those “two” confused) create much of the strain that causes them to be broken in the first place.

When it comes to physical activity, use this simple principle, only take the easy way because you can, not because you need. When you start needing the easy way, go back to the “hard” way while you still can. Otherwise you may be complaining breathlessly with the two steps you take in a day, on and off an escalator/elevator.