Destroyed by the Bell

I awake to two sounds every morning: the sound of my mother furiously thundering, “SHANNON,” at the top of her lungs, and the ringing of the tornado sirens that I have somehow managed to sleep through… again. At this point in the school year, checking the time only slows me down because, as usual, the clock reads 7:10 and I have twenty minutes (accounting for ten minutes of travel time) to get ready, eat breakfast, and hop on the racetrack to school. As I peer into my closet, I see emptiness slightly masked by a few scattered hangers grasping the bare shelves of the forgotten wardrobe. I have to sport the torn leggings and mustard-stained flannel yet again. Then, I undergo my typical beauty routine (if I can even call it that): scrub my face half-heartedly, brush my teeth unenthusiastically, and stroke my eyelashes with a single swoop of mascara quite hastily. In the cloud of darkness that shrouds my hallway, I trip over the slippery wall my parents refer to as “stairs” and tumble down into the kitchen where a piece of toast on fire finds its way into my hands. My mother kicks me out of the warm house with no jacket and no concern for the inevitability of me catching the deadly cold in the desolate air of Cleveland, Ohio. I now have ten minutes to get to school in order to make the late bell but alas, I have lost sight of the roads under a heavy covering of glistening snow. “Here goes nothing,” I reassure myself. To set the tone of the following ten minutes, I play my “Crap, I’m Going to be Late” playlist and rev my engine a few times at the neighborhood animals and anyone else who happens to watch me from beyond their drawn curtains to show them that yes, I do mean business. I swerve out of my driveway and immediately hit a patch of black ice as I exit the neighborhood. Suddenly, my head is turning as the car spins round and round, far beyond the left-of-center line. This continues for several seconds and the car begins to flip until a nativity scene stops the force of my five-ton car. Shoot, I hope that does not come back to bite me one day. I reach out of my shattered window to knock three times on the adjacent Pine. Superstition never ceases to take priority in my mind. I carefully back out of the yard making a mental reminder to write them a formal apology during Psychology class. Continuing down Miles Road at a steady 95 miles per hour, I just barely make the stoplight as it fades from a tempting yellow to a dangerous red. As I run through three consecutive stop signs, I see flashes of our nation’s colors in my rearview mirror: the cops. Pfft. Some justice system we have where abiding by the law reigns over getting to school on time. With only five minutes to reach my destination, I make the executive decision to evade the law and continue my merry way through town. Yet, a case of bad timing strikes me again as I see the line into school piling up miles deep. With no time to spare, I drive over the patiently waiting cars in line, careful to throw my trash out the window to reduce the amount of weight crushing my peers. As I approach the front of the line, I spy the source of the traffic jam: a 2001 Toyota transporting an old man with the audacity to block others from turning right on red into the school. I park my car on the decrepit man’s trunk, hop out of my monster truck, and look him straight in the eyes as I say, “time to have your day ruined.” With justice on my mind, I drag my keys across the fresh paint job and take a crow bar to the windshield. Satisfied, I climb back into the car and race at 45 miles per hour above the school zone limit and create my own parking spot directly on the lawn of the outside common area. The policeman, who apparently recruited an army to capture me, surrounds my car; yet, I bounce off of the belly of a donut-loving cop and find myself sticking the landing safely in the foyer. YES! I ARRIVED ON *ding ding ding.* “Late again, Miss Fung. Detention after school,” taunts Mr. Kirk. How sadly anticlimactic.