For anyone considering Slinky/escalator interactions, I offer the advice that you should make sure the size of the Slinky and the steps are compatible. My friend Marie and I tried to send a slinky down the up escalator of Burdines in Tyrone Mall, St. Petersburg, Florida around 1990. However, the idea came to us when we were were already at the mall, and her large-size plastic Slinky was at her house. Being poor high school students, we bought the small-size metal Slinky because it was cheaper, and found that it was too small to go down the steps of the escalator properly -- it sort of tumbled off the edge of a step and lay there. Most annoying to us, but the people who politely waited at the bottom of the escalator probably preferred it that way.