My Date With a Flip-Flop-Eating Escalator
When entering Los Cabos International Airport recently, my brain filled with the promise of the rest and relaxation awaiting my family and me. But just as I was about to step off the down escalator onto Mexican soil, the escalator had a different idea. It screeched to a halt for no reason at all. At least that’s what I thought until my right foot refused my brain’s command to step forward.
I blew out my flip-flop, as Jimmy Buffett sang in “Margaritaville.” But I did more than step on a pop-top. My right Reef slide—technically not a flip-flop—was savagely attacked and wasn’t going anywhere without professional removal. I have worn open-toed shoes nearly every day of the past 25 years, but never once had I experienced an escalator problem.
Off on the Wrong Foot
Of all the places in the world for flip-flops not to be welcome—Cabo San Lucas? How the hell does minimalist-sandal-wearing rocker Sammy Hagar get to his nightclub down here?
There should at least be a sign on the escalator warning people of this, I thought … only there was. It clearly stated: “Evitar zapatos de suela blanda.” But that translates to “avoid soft-sole shoes,” which includes sneakers. (The photo pictures a Croc, not a flip-flop, but I digress.)
Anyway, what are hard-soled shoes, and why would anyone wear them to Cabo? Who shows up to a beach vacation dressed like a Victorian chimney sweep?
No matter, though. The brisk flow of pedestrian traffic into the airport means you have three whole seconds to locate, read and comprehend that sign among a panel of nine other pictographs screaming for your attention.
Soleless Experience
During the hour that my right Reef slide remained embedded in the Cabo airport escalator’s gratey thing, dozens of tourists descended via the still-working down escalator, pointed at me and laughed. I was the unofficial welcoming attraction of Terminal 2: “Shoeless Man in His Natural Habitat.”
What seemed like every available airport staffer showed up to help—but only for five minutes of yanking at my slide with all their might to no avail.
“Could someone please just reverse the escalator?” I asked each one in my best seventh-grade Spanish. Most laughed. A few took a photo with their phone and lied to me that help was immediately en route when they were probably just texting the photo to their friends. You might have already seen one of these photos posted on social media with the caption: “Mira, look at this pendejo!”
As I waited in place, hopping around in circles on my one still-covered foot while my wife and daughter got bored and grabbed coffee, I imagined what my mother would say if she saw me in this predicament.
I’m pretty sure it would have gone exactly like this (to be read in a thick New “Yawk” accent).
“I always tell you to pay more attention to where you’re walking, Corey. You could have lost half your toes, and then this wouldn’t be so funny, would it?
“Were you texting?”
I wasn’t. I probably wasn’t. I don’t really remember any of the before times anymore.
Foot Loose
Finally, a Mexican MacGyver showed up with a screwdriver. Apparently, he was the only one in all of Cabo who realized that the gratey thing is part of a panel that easily screws out.
Miraculously, my Reef slide survived, and I happen to be writing this while wearing it. It is my firm belief that the minor teeth marks it sustained were due only to all of the fruitless airport staff’s yanking. It seemed they were only concerned about freeing up their escalator, not preserving my footwear.
I tagged Reef in a Facebook post with the photos accompanying this column. I gave the company permission to use them, along with my humiliating testimonial, for an ad campaign about how indestructible their footwear is. There was no response.
There was a comment from my mother, though. She said exactly what I predicted she would—word for word.
Anyway, Cabo was great once I got my flip-flop out of the airport escalator. But I took the stairs going back home.
