First Day

The smell of newness is something I love about the first day of school but I pretty much hate everything else. There's so much traffic. There are so many freshmen. There's so much noise.

I make my way to my first class. I have become an expert of wasting time on the first day of school. I have to go through my rules and explain each one. I have to get to know them while drinking cup after cup of coffee to stimulate my exhausted brain cells that have to remember 200 names at the end of the day.

Strangely though, this first day is different. I've barely gotten through explaining my A/F grading system when the bell rings and I have to get through my next class and it happens there again. And I feel I have merely seconds each class.

I wonder who I should talk to this about. The Registrar? How to explain it? "Dear Ma'am, I have reason to believe that I am being robbed of my class time."

A plane is parked in the hallway. "Come, Camille, this way." And in my confusion I just stand there and the plane door closes and it slowly glides away to take off.

Someone says, "That was the only way out of this school!"

Realizing my entrapment, I run after the plane. My papers fall to the floor. My hair comes undone. The door opens. Hysterical, confused and dirty, I jump in.