Remember The Fun Theory? It is a Volkswagen initiative to get people to think of ways to change people’s behavior for the better. I haven’t been to that site for a while but I always thought ‘Damn, Volkswagen sure does have some interesting marketing campaigns.’ For them it’s a win-win: people find inventive ways to enhance the lives of others and Volkswagen implants their name in the public’s brain. For me it cemented in my mind that they’re pretty innovative and willing to take a chance to go outside the norm.

When I saw the following video I didn’t know that it was a VW clip. After a few seconds, though, it dawned on me that this seems eerily similar to the piano stairs. The use of a subway, the photography, the peppy music. Then I realized that, dangnabbit, they hooked me again.

While the entire campaign is to pimp their Polo GTI I couldn’t help but take that idea and imagine what it would be like to have one of these on the Metro here in DC. Specifically at the Rosslyn station which, according to the questionably accurate Wikipedia “The station features the third longest continuous escalator in the world[citation needed]; an escalator ride between the street level and the mezzanine level takes 159 seconds.[9]”. Citation needed indeed. But I’d want one there because that’s the one that I regularly use when I travel downtown. I refuse to drive in the city and normally use either the Metro or cabs so my regular routine has me parking my car in Rosslyn and then taking the train into the city.

It would be glorious. It would also be a wreck. Logistically you’d have to make sure that ‘the fast lane’ only let one person on at a time and would not let anyone slide until the previous person exited. Oh, and it doesn’t take into account drunk people. On the plus side Rosslyn isn’t really known for being a party town so the number of drunk people heading down is disproportionate to the number of people going up.

Speaking of going up, the alternative to this was their elevator:

Which really didn’t do anythin 🙁 All you got was the sound of a spaceship. Unless it was an express elevator to the top and bottom floors it was kind of anti-climactic. There has to be a better way to go up rather than just make noises. Hell, I can make those noises now when I ride an elevator…except that when I do people look at me funny.

Me: “3…2…1 WHHOOOOOOOSSSSSHHHVROOOOOOooommschhhhhhhhhhhhck!”
Tourist child: “Mommy! A mentally ill man!”
Me: ” 🙁 Houston, we have a problem…”

There has to be a better, faster way to go up which is just as innovative as a slide going down.