Zero hour
Have you ever had one of those days when nothing goes right? Me too.
In fact, I had a couple of them not too long ago…
The first came on the morning of the big soccer game and I was
sitting in class, when I realized I hadn’t brought my contact lenses.
(I’m nearsighted and would need them to see the ball.) So I took a
chance and broke ‘The Rule,’ and sent a text to my mom asking her to
bring them in. Wouldn’t you know it, I got caught.
Oops.
Everyone knows we aren’t supposed to have our phones turned on, let
alone use them during class, and usually I don’t. But just this once I
was hoping against hope that I wouldn’t get caught. I ended up with a
Zero Hour, which is the same thing as a morning detention. Oh, my
gosh! Talk about boring. Serving time in detention is about as
exciting as watching snow melt.
Nonetheless I survived that cruel and unusual punishment. But later
on I when went into another class, I forgot to turn my cell phone off.
Duh.
So I’m sitting there, minding my own business when suddenly it
vibrates, loud enough for my lovely teacher to hear it. Ohhh…I wish
I could have slid down and hid between the cracks in the floor boards.
Anyway, the teacher asked me if it was my phone vibrating. I didn’t
want to lie, but more than that I really didn’t want to spend more
time in Zero Hour. So I lied, and she didn’t buy it. She told everyone
in the class to show her their phone, and of course I didn’t have time
to erase the new text…BUSTED!!!
She was mad at me and I was so frustrated I could have spit. Not only
did she keep my cell, she also gave me a lecture about lying, and I
had to serve another Zero Hour. This whole scene was too much and I
told her I just didn’t even care. Zero Hour was held right before our
class was leaving on a class trip, and if I skipped, I wouldn’t be
able to go. Toughing it out was the lesser of two evils.
And to make matters a whole lot worse, my mom found out and didn’t
take my side. I love her to death, but boy oh boy, she can really be
annoying sometimes. She told me I had to apologize.
Was she kidding? Apologize to Mrs. Lovely Teacher? For what??? I’d
rather poke my eye out with a stick! Not only did I not want to do
that, I wasn’t sorry! If the truth be told, I still had a few choice
things left I wanted to say. But mom…you can’t argue with mom…
Deep inside my heart of hearts, though, I knew she was right. And
that was probably the worst thing about everything that was happening.
I wasn’t raised to act like a brat; I knew better, but ohh…I sure
did not want to do the right thing.
Mom helped me along by saying that if I didn’t go in and talk to my
teacher on my own, she would give me a helping hand, so I thought it
best to bite the bullet and get it over with.
I had the whole scenario planned out in my mind, complete with a
little speech (I was not even going to say anything sarcastic). I
walked in and stood before my teacher, ready to give her my spiel. I
opened my mouth to talk… and I started to cry.
Is there anything worse than crying when you don’t want to? I felt
like an idiot, vulnerable and embarrassed, with tears running down my
cheeks…and my nose running, too, sniff, sniff. If it would’ve
helped, I’da kicked myself, and I just cried all the harder. When all
was said and done, she did accept my apology and somehow I got through
that horrid situation.
Well, that’s all over and done with and behind me now. Whew! Next
year I hope I don’t get any Zero Hours, but time will tell, and that
will be a whole ‘nuther story.