Thanks, Lisa!

I'm a believer, because once my son (6 at the time) got his Nike hi-top caught in an escalator in a JCPenney store. He was two steps up from me, and I had his 4 yo brother on my back, and shopping bags hanging from both arms. As I saw what was about to happen when he reached the top, I leaped the remaining 4 steps, piggyback-kid and all, slipped the bags off my right arm, stretched out and grabbed his arm at the armpit and lifted him off the escalator, just as he neared those scary teeth at the top.

I've never felt such an adrenaline rush before or since. Adrenaline was the only explanation for being able to make that leap, loaded down as I was, and pick him up with one arm, with the escalator holding his foot.

His shoe was built like a Converse All-star, with the rubber cap on the toes and the thick rubber edge. Just the short time it was pinched between the sidewall and the steps gouged the rubber edge on the top and bottom clean through, and his little toe was being pulled in. I can't imagine what an escalator would do to a Crock shoe.

Thankfully his toes weren't damaged. I held it together long enough to get the manager to give us (I was a low-income single mother at the time) a new pair of shoes (because those were his school shoes that I had just bought and it could have been a lot worse and cost the store a lot more). And then when we got in the car, I burst into tears. ::whew:::

Karen