I am always thinking one step ahead in my fails and that is where these handy altitude increasers come in to complete the pun. Who hasn’t, in their life time (although mine has encompassed two millenniums but less than two decades):

-Fallen up the stairs (tripping on their face and probably chucking all of their handhelds into the air in a stunning slow-mo fail montage from several artistic angles).

-Fallen down the stairs (socks + glossy wooden stairs do not mix). Those things turn into a literal slipping slide when you’ve got your best white cottons on and you are walking/running somewhat carelessly while leaning back. Unlike cats, humans always land on their butts, and when on the stair case of doom, you usually slide a good three trillion steps before you finally hit the bottom in a resounding clunk of fail. And let me tell you, tailbone/butt injuries are the worst because they sound pitiful and they hurt like their is no tomorrow. There are certain injuries that case specific acute pains that trigger some sort of “fear of death” hormone in our bodies. For example, jamming a finger on basketball, jamming a finger in a car door, stubbing a toe on a door jam and landing on your butt at a high velocity. I have had so many bad experiences with tailbone bruising that make you walk like a cowboy who really has to pee. And when people ask you why you’re limping, you smile all martyrlike and state “I pulled my hamstring”. While they figure out where the hamstring is, you shuffle off to your next destination.

-Thinking that there is one more step at the top of the stairs than there is. And then there’s that sickening swoop and woosh of nothingness as your foot falls where the next step should have been. This feeling beats out any roller-coaster in terrifyingness. I have fully believed I was falling off the side of Kilimanjaro when actually my foot was descending through about 30cm of air. Still. Scary.

-Thinking there is one less step at the top of the stairs than there is. Same concept, difference scenario. You either bash your foot into the magically-appeared step and groan as you feel every muscle in your leg reverberate like a cymbal or you face plant over the step. Equally painful. Equally Fail.

-Losing your rhythm while descending the stairs and nearly tripping. At my old school there were long, long staircases. I’m not talking 20 steps each, these things could easily have had 100 steps a set and there were three sets in total. When stampeding down these steps of doom towards the recess yard, it was vital to maintain the one-two-one-two mantra or else panic, over count and second guess yourself, grabbing onto the banister like a fool and stopping to calm yourself from the horrific adventure. Man: 0. Stairs: 1.

So there you have it, 5 excellent scenarios, all of which I experience on a regular basis, in which stairs are both terrifying and fail. Escalators, however, are win. Nothing beats the bad-ass feeling of kicking it vice-versa and going up the down escalator and down the up escalator.

Fail + Win = Life in general. It evens out.