Like all great American tales, this story begins at a Starbucks. Well, technically, it began at my high school with me begging my friend Kelsey to take me to Starbucks. I mean, we had a whole 20 minutes before class. Plenty of time, right?
Anyway, there we were, jumping up and down and checking the time every five seconds. “We’re going to be late because of you!” Kelsey muttered angrily. Slowly but surely, our coffee was being made. Maybe 20 minutes wasn’t enough time.
“Have a nice day,” the barista said as she handed us our coffees.
“Thank you,” Kelsey replied. “Okay, let’s go!”
“Hold on!” I called, running to the cream and sugar stand.
“Oh, come on! Bobby, you are such a freaking girl!” The insult didn’t seem to make much sense coming from her, but whatever. We jumped in her car.
“Five minutes. That’s plenty of time! I mean, like, that’s five minutes! We can make it back, right?” Man, I can sure sound convincing when I want to. We finally pulled into school (after feverishly cursing every red light), but when we arrived, our jaws dropped. The area was covered in smoke.
“Oh my God,” we said simultaneously.
“That’s horrible for the environment,” Kelsey finished, an incredibly depressed look on her face. “What did you do!?” She shot me an accusing look.
“What in the … Hey, maybe we’ll have an excuse to be late!” I said joyfully.
“Let’s see what’s going on.”
We drove through the lot and spotted it: a carbecue. The entire front of one of the cars was on fire. We pulled next to it to get a better look and saw burning oil dripping from its engine.
“KELSEY, DRIVE! It’s going to blow up!” I shouted, panicking.
“Students, you have one minute to get to class,” came a voice over the intercom.
“KELSEY, PARK! We’re going to be late!” I shouted, again panicking.
“Will you make up your mind?!” she screamed, looking frantically for a spot that would be safe from spontaneous explosions. Slamming on the brakes and jumping out, we ran crouched over to avoid the smoke.
Security guards rushed past us carrying fire extinguishers. Sirens blared as fire trucks pulled into the lot.
“Kels, is it just me, or are we in the middle of an action movie?” I asked, half expecting to hear helicopters and gunfire.
“Mmnm umnumn-num,” Kelsey responded, her sleeve over her mouth to block the smoke. I assumed she said something along the lines of “Get moving! We’re going to be late!”
We booked it into the building and made a mad dash for our classes. The intercom buzzed loudly. A voice rang through the halls.
“Students, you should now be in your fifth-hour class.”
I pushed through the waves of students crowding the door. I made it! I was about to take a huge victory gulp of my coffee when the teacher said, “Bobby, you should know the rules by now. No coffee in the classroom! Put it in the back.”