From deep inside her tote, she could feel her cell phone vibrating. She sighed. “Shit,” she whispered while reaching into the bag’s cluttered abyss and eyeing the ever-approaching end of the escalator that required her to dismount while remaining upright and in total possession of both her bags. Somehow, her hand closed around her phone, her left foot led her smoothly off the moving staircase, and the wheels of her bag barely hiccupped as they passed over the threatening metal teeth swallowing the stairs. A thought suddenly occurred to her as she stopped to answer her phone—maybe she could get through this day.

“Hey!” the man behind her shouted, right before careening into her back. “Jesus Christ, lady!”

Eileen threw both her hands wide, her cell phone flying, as she pitched violently over her own bag and tumbled onto the linoleum floor. The heavy weight of another human falling on top of her—it was chaos.

“Who the hell stops?” a man was shouting.

More people were yelling, shuffling, trying to get around the pileup of people at the bottom of the escalator. “Hit the emergency stop button!” a woman yelled.

After a bit more shouting, untangling of strangers’ limbs, righting of upended bags, someone reached out a hand to Eileen. She looked up from the floor, confused. “What happened?” she asked and took the man’s outstretched hand.

As he helped hoist her up from the floor, he looked into her eyes. “There seems to have been…uh, a bit of an accident,” he said.

“Damn right there was a bit of an accident!” another man standing nearby began yelling at Eileen. In two steps, the man’s red and enraged face was right in front of hers. “Who the hell stops at the bottom of a busy escalator to answer their phone? What the hell is wrong with you?” The man raised his hand and shook it at the now-paralyzed stairs behind them. “You could’ve killed me! Me and at least five other people!”

Eileen shrank back from the man’s rage. “I…I don’t know—”

“What the hell you’re doing? You got that right, lady!”

“Hey now,” the man who had helped Eileen up from the floor suddenly interjected, taking a step between Eileen and her angry victim. “It was an accident.”

“A completely preventable one!” the furious man yelled. “Here’s an idea—how about you stay off your goddamn phone while you’re on an escalator and shit-faced drunk!” he crescendoed while snatching both his suitcase and computer bag off the floor.

Eileen stood, mortified, squeezing her two hands together until the knuckles turned white. “I’m sorry,” she whispered as the man shook his head and stormed off through baggage claim and toward the sliding glass doors.