Phone-Dependent

Beep-beep-beep! Finally! Wait- I need to get in the shower. I kick out of my sheets and claw through the depths of my dresser. I grab whatever clothes I think match in my dreary, early morning, teenage state of mind. I head down the hall to the bathroom that has been deemed “mine” for most of my life. When I approach the door I hear the sound of faded music, water droplets pelting bathroom tiles, and a very faint yet high pitched voice that seems to be my sisters. I must relocate. That bathroom is in use, so up the stairway I go. I can’t miss this, I need to be there, God please… Wait I'm not even religious? 

At this point I am hustling up and down the halls of my house. I reach the door to the upstairs bathroom and knock three times; no response. I bust open the door as if I'm an FBI agent. I turn on the water and wait for it to boil. Once It has reached optimal shower temperature I strip down and hop in. I've wasted too much time in the pursuit of hot water that I now need to shorten my bathing period. I'm very fast, skipping over the cleansing and hydrating I usually do to my face. After a quick rinse I hop out, throw on my half-heartedly selected outfit, and down to put on shoes and find my keys, I go.

I rush out the door with what I think to be all of my necessities; I have my keys, my wallet, my Chapstick, and even my bag of small rubber bands I use to try to fix my mouth. I know what I'll do to make up for even more time. I will speed. Even though my car is an automatic, I switch it into the manual mode because I think it's more fun and makes it feel as though I'm driving a race car. Speeding is never a good idea and I don’t support it, but man can it be fun. With all my anticipation of this event I'm still not even sure how to get there. Well I know how to get to West Lebanon on the interstate. Once I am there I will map it on my phone. Everything is easier with a phone, I don’t know what I would do without mine. 

Okay, okay, I need to get off when it says Concord and then the very next right is my off ramp. After navigating traffic like a veteran Uber driver, I got my license two weeks ago, I slow down and stop by McDonald's and I go to check my phone. It's not on the passenger seat. It must have slid onto the floor. I stand there for twenty minutes looking for my phone. I'm on the brink of tears praying I find it somewhere in the car. I know, I can ping it from my Apple watch. I'm not sure why I hadn't thought of this before. I go to ping my phone and at the top of my watch’s screen there is a phone diagram showing a red line through the center. I had left it at home. Sitting in the McDonald’s parking lot, crying, all my doors open, people staring at me, and everything going wrong I realize that after three weeks of anticipation and eager to go see Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, that all I will see today is a much lower reading on my gas gauge. 
 

Posted in response to the challenge Anticipation.

Sam Parkman

VT

17 years old

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