Maxi dress vs escalator

Picture the scene. I’m with a client at Marble Arch tube station. We’ve just left a meeting and we’re heading back to their office.

At the top of an escalator we scoot past a huge group of school children to reach the escalator ahead of them. There we resume our conversation as we travel down towards the platform.

As we near the bottom I pick up my maxi dress, as you do when you go up stairs, only to discover it was stuck. In the escalator. And I couldn’t pull it free.

At the foot of the escalator, as it started to loop, more of my dress was sucked up. The pulling sensation became stronger and stronger. All I could do was stand there holding my dress with one arm and in turn gripping my thigh tightly. The other arm useless having recently come out of plaster.

It was only a matter of time before the dress ripped and set me free. But where would it rip? The pulling was so strong at that point, panic started to set in.

I’d be left in Central London in my bra and pants. In rush hour. It would be mortifying.

Suddenly a man appeared from nowhere. He yanked my dress out of the escalator just as fellow commuters began to topple like dominoes behind me. The stranger was gone as quickly as he’d arrived but not before I said thank you very much.

We laughed like hyenas all the way back to the office. I *might have* snorted. There were definitely tears. Likely relief I left that escalator still clothed.