The encounter with the escalator

Many years ago I remember an occasion with my father that has since become a family story and legend. It goes that after a few too many drinks one evening, my father decided to try a Dennis the Menace routine, and at one of the longest Washington D.C Metro escalators he tried to sit on the moving hand rail and slide down it. Well being a little tipsy, he lost his balance and fell off the escalator into the polished metal slide that ran parallel to the escalator. Unfortunately the slide is covered with numerous rows of cylindrical bumps--that are meant to prevent people from sliding down them-- and needless to say, my father's ass was quite sore and bruised by the time he made it to the bottom of the slide and flew off the end. A few days after the event my father decided to pull down his pants and take a picture of his butt, in the picture however his butt was so bruised it looked like a black censor panel was placed over it. Somehow this picture was made into a Christmas ornament, and for several years it appeared prominently as a decoration on our Christmas tree.