While plodding down a dead Metro esclaator, it’s hard to avoid the allure, just for a second, of the slick area between the escalators. It’s obviously stupid and something you should never do—-not to mention that avoiding the bumps would be tricky—-but what if you did?

A post on Reddit’s D.C. forum related this recent, drunken attempt to do maneuver down the escalator, revealing the complicated physics of transit spelunking. It’s worth a read, if only to confirm that, yes, slipping down an escalator is a bad idea.

But it got me thinking: How often do people think it’s a good idea? Metro spokeswoman Caroline Lukas says the agency doesn’t keep stats on how often passengers slide down the escalators.  “Fortunately it is not something that happens often,” she writes in an email.

Still, Metro seems pretty relaxed about it. According to Lukas, sliding down the escalator would probably just qualify as disorderly conduct and not a more serious crime.

But the negligible rewards of taking the slick way down an escalator seem so very small compared to the downsides. Our intrepid Reddit Metro-slider thought so:

I get to the bottom and land flat on my ass and my back. Knocked the wind out of me and left a really gnarly bruise on my ass (it’s only gotten worse three days later and it’s a deep dark purple, about the size of a medium cantaloupe). My ankles are also both in pain (probably joint stress), and my heels (left one in particular) are pretty sore/bruised. Honestly looking back, it was really fucking stupid of me.

Internet idiots: What will they think of next?

Photo by Darrow Montgomery