Whoooosh, Whooosh

Have you ever noticed that automatic sliding doors, like the ones at the local Wally Mart or the library here, are absolutely irresistible to little boys. Irresistible.

I happen to know this because I was at both of those places yesterday and observed "little boy and sliding door" behavior in both places. I am just wondering if it is something genetic?

At Wally Mart this is what I saw:

Mom pushing cart with small child in seat, older boy (probably 5 y.o.) trailing behind. The trailing part is important because you see, mom went into the store but son became fascinated with the doors.

Stand in front of the door.....Whoosh the door opens.....jump to the side.......Whoosh the door closes....repeat until the greeter by the door is about ready to come out of his skin and mom comes rushing back saying, "Bernard! Stop that and stay by me!"

OK, OK I don't know if the little guy's name was Bernard. But he LOOKED like a Bernard to me. And as he walked away he looked back longingly at the doors.....going Whoosh.

After the Wally Mart it was off to the library to pick up a book that had come in for me. My local library has not one but TWO automatic sliding doors. Little boy heaven I would think.

Again, standing in line waiting to pick up my book I observe Mom, daughter and son entering the building. Mom and sister walking along.....little brother running. Running up to the sliding doors and jumping in front of them......Whoooosh go the doors. Mom and sister walking through the next set of doors with brother hanging out there until the doors closed and then jumping in front of them and......Whoosh the second set of doors open.

And then he decides that he is going to run through those doors.

Have you ever seen the movie Ben Hur? And there is a scene in the movie where Ben Hur (Charleton Heston at his studliest) is in the slave ship and they are showing Quintus Arius how fast they can get the slaves to row?



"Ramming Speed!!!!"

Oh yeah, you can see where this is headed. Little brother runs through the doors, picks up speed...you can just hear someone saying, "RAMMING SPEED!" and he takes out his sister in the front of the library.

"Oh look Frank, it's Bowling For Sisters!"

Just another day in the life of a little boy and an automatic sliding door.

And just as an aside, can I say that YouTube must have everything if I could find the Ramming Speed clip from Ben Hur.