That Was The Week That Was 20-24 February 2023
Travelators are Walking All Over Us
It is truth universally acknowledged that only about a half of all the travelators installed around the world are working at any one time. There must be a reason for this. It is just too hard to believe that all over the world, everywhere, travelator engineers and maintenance teams only do half a job, or that half of them are employed but do nothing.
It is possible that the machines themselves are not very good, or at least prone to malfunction. But for that to explain the outages suggests that either all the suppliers are only half making them work, or that half of them cannot make them work at all, but still, somehow, they get contracts to supply them. And, it assumes that the travelators that do not work are always the same ones.
No, the truth is that a travelator will be working just fine one day and then the next time you go to walk on it, it is not a travelator, it is a stationarator. That makes it harder to explain. Working one day, not working the next. Are they subject to the same dictates as pilots’ rosters?
There are two obvious possibilities. First, that somehow, around the world, there is a secret society of travelator suppliers and engineers that sees advantage in keeping us guessing, and has a huge secret database that notes when and where a travelator is not to work. Where is James Bond when you need him? This secret society, if it exists, must be exposed, as a matter of some urgency.
If for no other reason than to discover its name. I have a few ideas: World Association of Leg and Knee Inactivity Neutering Goals (WALKING); Boys Out to Organise Travelators (BOOTS – which will walk all over you…); and Society for Travelator Inaction and Limited Life (STILL).
The second theory, which I do not think we should dismiss, is that travelators are actually sentient. They know when you need a long walk to keep your step count up. They know when it will most inconvenience you to make you walk because you are exhausted and carrying a heavy load. They talk to each other in some secret travelator code, so that your entire walk will be on inoperative travelators.
You may think this outlandish, but can you think of a better suggestion? Prove me wrong.