Perspective

I forgot about a story from yesterday. I didn’t remember it until I was talking to Ron last night and I told him about my flight over here.

In the Cleveland airport, the Continental Airlines regional jets take off from the “D” terminal. To get to this terminal, you walk half way through the “C” terminal, then down an escalator that is two stories high, through a long tunnel with moving walkways that take you under the runway and then up a two story high escalator into the “D” terminal.

I stepped onto the up escalator behind a woman that was trying to carry quite a load. She had her son, about seven years old, two large suitcases each with a smaller suitcase hooked to the handle plus a large bottle of water.

The son got on the escalator first. Then the woman pushed one of the large suitcases in front of her, then her, and then she pulled the second large suitcase behind her. She was trying somehow to also hold this large bottle of water. In thinking back, I think it was the water bottle that started the whole thing, but it all happened so fast, I’m really not sure.

First, she is juggling the water. I see it going, but I am not able to catch it and it goes by me because I next see her suitcases closest to me starting to fall. As she is trying to grab them, she is losing her balance and starting to fall as well. So I grabbed the suitcases closest to me, and kind of put my weight behind them so as to hopefully prevent her from going ass over tin cups down the escalator. On top of all that, the suitcases on the other side of her are also started to fall on top of her. What a nightmare in a short amount of time!

I tell her not to worry about the lower suitcases, as I had a hold on them. She just needed to worry about righting herself and the upper suitcases. Luckily, she wasn’t holding on to her son, he just watched with wide eyed wonder! She thankfully was able to brace herself against me and the lower suitcases while she got herself back to her feet and steadied the higher suitcases. Poor woman was in a tizzy, which I can’t say I blame her. As she was straightening herself up, she said something like “thanks! I can’t believe after all that all I lost was my water bottle!” Then, the guy behind me spoke up and said he was able to catch the water and he passed it up to her.

As scared as I was for a moment thinking this woman with four suitcases was going to fall on me . . . can you IMAGINE what was going through the head of the guy behind me? He not only had to be worrying about the lady with four suitcases falling, he had to worry about ME falling on him first! And I thought I was having a bad day! Think of the nightmares HE had that night!

Here is a good lesson in perspective. We were all on the escalator at the same time.

• From the son’s perspective, this may be a funny show he is about to witness.
  
• From the lady’s perspective, she is worried about the embarrassment of falling plus the possibility of getting injured.
  
• From my perspective, I am seriously worried about her falling on me and me falling and the pain of the injuries that will come from all of that.
  
• From the perspective of the guy behind me, if we all fall, he probably will be crushed to death!

From now on, I’m getting on the escalator first!