[Rain Man]

Here's a lifetime first for me.

There's a mall near my office, which is kind of an odd covered outdoor mall. I cut through it to get to my car on days that I drive, and I walk by a set of escalators. They're quite tall, covering more height than a typical escalator.

Here's the first: a person was stuck on the escalator.

I always thought that was just a bad joke, but it was true. It was a guy in his 30s or so, and while he looked healthy he had one of those walkers, so obviously he had some sort of disability. He was about 2/3rds of the way up, standing on a step with his walker, and a mall security guy was hanging on to him to keep him from falling. Another mall security guard was at the bottom, and he has starting and stopping the escalator a second at a time. The escalator was inching the guy down.

I have no idea what this was about. The top of the escalator is about 30 feet from a bank of two elevators, so I'm not sure if the elevators were busted or if the guy tried the escalator and got freaked out or something.

It was odd, too, because they were jerking the escalator on and off, which to me seemed like a much riskier move than just turning it on and having the guard hold the guy while it smoothly descended. But hey, I figure that if they're mall security, they must know what they're doing.