By Caspar von Hollen ‘26, Humor Editor

The bell ringing to signal the beginning of the day felt jarring like an old school bell like above might. (Photo courtesy of Creative Fabrica)

It’s Monday morning. I’m walking into school, delirious from the five hours of sleep I awoke from not one hour ago. As I stand in front of the scanner, waiting the five seconds it takes to recognize my ID, my brain works on decoding what my schedule looks like for today. Needless to say, the decoding takes a while. Eventually, I figure out that it’s a red day. Great. That makes things even more complicated. 

I make my way to the library, where I plan to pretend to do work before school starts. Right before I sit down in my chair, the bell rings. I jump, not used to the early nature of the 8:05 bell. Now comes the hard part: finding out whether this is advisory or community time. My first guess: advisory. I head to my advisory room, but when I get there, the door is locked. This doesn’t discourage me though, as I’m used to all the NA doors locking the instant my hand leaves the handle. 

After a few minutes of waiting, my advisor is nowhere to be found, so I decide to head to Coraci. It would make sense to have a morning meeting because it’s been so long since our last US meeting. Honestly, the last one I can remember is Convocation! When I arrive, though, the auditorium is crickets. No, literally, I hear the school’s crickets chirping in the ceiling. Sure enough, though, within a few seconds, I am caught in a stampede of middle schoolers. I am packed in so tight for a second I’m not sure if I am in school or at a Travis Scott concert!

After the ritualistic chants of “STEM TIME” and “WE ARE NA” at Morning Meeting, the students are invited up to make announcements. Oh no. My heart sinks as I see a line of students that snakes its way all the way out of the auditorium. “We’re gonna be here forever,” I think to myself. When all of the announcements have been made and the audience members have awoken from their Morning Meeting slumbers, the students file out, somehow taking longer than it takes that one teacher to return my assessments or, for the teachers reading this, that one student to show up to your meeting. 

Unfortunately, I don’t make it to my first class on time. How could anyone make it to class within five minutes unless they run track? I sit down in class, say “hi” to my friends, and pull out my homework, ready for the race of finishing it before the teacher comes around to collect it.