So this is how my days end? Alone, red faced and pants less. I’m not sure how it all came to be, but here I was, wondering how long I would be in this brightly lit room. The kids on the posters all looked so happy but this was no happy place. A tall, 6 feet or more, man opened the door carrying my pants with him. He towered over my small insignificant self as he held out my pants. I humbly took them without a single thank you or hint of gratitude. Slowly, I left and waited for the arrival of my mom, hoping to never remember the indescribable events that took place this day. Yet, the memory crept back into my head.
With the sun sitting high in the sky, newly paved concrete left no cracks on the sidewalk along the front of the school. I made my way to the front of the school only to be stopped by the sound of my mother’s plea for me to turn around. When I stopped, a little red in the face do to the fact that I could hear the snickers of my peers in the background, I noticed a patch of four leaf clovers and, at the time, I didn’t think much of this omen. My mother wished me a good day as she always does but today was different. It wasn’t the monotonous line that had to be recited each day. She said it with a sort of sincerity in her voice that I knew from the moment I walked through those doors the world would belong to me.
I floated through the door with a swagger that could make the girls “holla back” back with the snap of my fingers. My jeans were still heavily scented with the Hollister cologne as is everything in the store for the first couple of days before the washing machine covered up the scent with the smell of laundry detergent. I just hoped the class could focus on the lesson and not get too distracted because I looked so good. Well, I got there attention. My teacher, short, cranky, and boring, babbled on and on about the first civilization to invent the horseshoe or something about a horse and a shoe. Her voice never wavered pitch, never showed a bit of interest. This, in turn, made it increasingly difficult to show interest in her voice and the words formed by them. My mind wandered through thousands of pointless bits of information for something to concentrate on from now until freedom rang out from among the school bell until, my eyes caught it. The white stood out against the dully colored pencil bag. I picked up my pen and began to doodle. The outside was white but the ink stained the paper black as black as the blackest night. When I had finished drawing a dragon, a sun, and a horseshoe my attention escaped me once again. I don’t know why I drew a horseshoe. I guess because my teacher was talking about it or at lease I think she was. I finished drawing the tips of the horseshoe that pointed straight up toward the sun and then began to spin the pen around my finger. This mildly interesting act kept my attention until the pen abruptly spun off my fingers and propelled itself to the front of the classroom. I had every intension to leave it there and pick it up after class. I, having a bag full of pens, didn’t see the need to pick it up after all, its not like what the teacher was saying was important enough to take notes on. Before I could begin to entertain myself once again, I heard my name being called and the whole class turned and stared at me so long and hard that I was certain that they were sure to bore holes straight through my chest, I looked at the teacher who was looking at the pen that, and I could be wrong was looking at the rest of us. I slowly got up from my desk, knocking my doodles to the ground. The sheet floated to the ground and landed softly upside down. I approached the pen and proceeded to pick it up. I bent over, knees bent, not wanting to hurt my back, and reached for my pen. The whole scene happened in slow motion. As I grasped the pen, I felt a rush of cool air race toward my backside. The tear. The icy cold chill gave my goose bumps. It was seam to seam. Instinctively I grasped for the rip. There was a hole in my pants that was comparable to the size of the Grand Canyon. Wide eyed, mouth (and pants) agape, I whipped around to hide what was already known, the whole class sat silent. The only sound that could be heard was the hum of the lawn mover slicing at the weeds, blades of grass and patches of clover that I saw before school. Because their brains were not fully developed, the whole class, wide eyed as me, sat in awe. It took them a while to fully process the events that just took place, but then, it came; a flood, a tidal wave of laughs, giggles and jokes. It was a massacre and I, poor innocent me, was the victim of this cruel show.
After this flashback, I went blank. It was all over now though. I learned two lessons that day. One, it is better to have ripped ants and lost than never to have ripped pants at all for the simple reason being that everyone needs to be embarrassed once in their life to the point where your face compares to that of a ripe tomato. Because of this experience, you have the ability needed to laugh off the little things because, in the grand scheme of things, it is never as bad as the time you ripped your pants. The second lesson I learned that day it that it is better to hurt your back than you rip your pants.
Written By: Luke Urbanovsky
With the sun sitting high in the sky, newly paved concrete left no cracks on the sidewalk along the front of the school. I made my way to the front of the school only to be stopped by the sound of my mother’s plea for me to turn around. When I stopped, a little red in the face do to the fact that I could hear the snickers of my peers in the background, I noticed a patch of four leaf clovers and, at the time, I didn’t think much of this omen. My mother wished me a good day as she always does but today was different. It wasn’t the monotonous line that had to be recited each day. She said it with a sort of sincerity in her voice that I knew from the moment I walked through those doors the world would belong to me.
I floated through the door with a swagger that could make the girls “holla back” back with the snap of my fingers. My jeans were still heavily scented with the Hollister cologne as is everything in the store for the first couple of days before the washing machine covered up the scent with the smell of laundry detergent. I just hoped the class could focus on the lesson and not get too distracted because I looked so good. Well, I got there attention. My teacher, short, cranky, and boring, babbled on and on about the first civilization to invent the horseshoe or something about a horse and a shoe. Her voice never wavered pitch, never showed a bit of interest. This, in turn, made it increasingly difficult to show interest in her voice and the words formed by them. My mind wandered through thousands of pointless bits of information for something to concentrate on from now until freedom rang out from among the school bell until, my eyes caught it. The white stood out against the dully colored pencil bag. I picked up my pen and began to doodle. The outside was white but the ink stained the paper black as black as the blackest night. When I had finished drawing a dragon, a sun, and a horseshoe my attention escaped me once again. I don’t know why I drew a horseshoe. I guess because my teacher was talking about it or at lease I think she was. I finished drawing the tips of the horseshoe that pointed straight up toward the sun and then began to spin the pen around my finger. This mildly interesting act kept my attention until the pen abruptly spun off my fingers and propelled itself to the front of the classroom. I had every intension to leave it there and pick it up after class. I, having a bag full of pens, didn’t see the need to pick it up after all, its not like what the teacher was saying was important enough to take notes on. Before I could begin to entertain myself once again, I heard my name being called and the whole class turned and stared at me so long and hard that I was certain that they were sure to bore holes straight through my chest, I looked at the teacher who was looking at the pen that, and I could be wrong was looking at the rest of us. I slowly got up from my desk, knocking my doodles to the ground. The sheet floated to the ground and landed softly upside down. I approached the pen and proceeded to pick it up. I bent over, knees bent, not wanting to hurt my back, and reached for my pen. The whole scene happened in slow motion. As I grasped the pen, I felt a rush of cool air race toward my backside. The tear. The icy cold chill gave my goose bumps. It was seam to seam. Instinctively I grasped for the rip. There was a hole in my pants that was comparable to the size of the Grand Canyon. Wide eyed, mouth (and pants) agape, I whipped around to hide what was already known, the whole class sat silent. The only sound that could be heard was the hum of the lawn mover slicing at the weeds, blades of grass and patches of clover that I saw before school. Because their brains were not fully developed, the whole class, wide eyed as me, sat in awe. It took them a while to fully process the events that just took place, but then, it came; a flood, a tidal wave of laughs, giggles and jokes. It was a massacre and I, poor innocent me, was the victim of this cruel show.
After this flashback, I went blank. It was all over now though. I learned two lessons that day. One, it is better to have ripped ants and lost than never to have ripped pants at all for the simple reason being that everyone needs to be embarrassed once in their life to the point where your face compares to that of a ripe tomato. Because of this experience, you have the ability needed to laugh off the little things because, in the grand scheme of things, it is never as bad as the time you ripped your pants. The second lesson I learned that day it that it is better to hurt your back than you rip your pants.
Written By: Luke Urbanovsky