“All students must remain in their last period classrooms. No one is permitted to leave,” our principal calmly announced over the intercom.  His voice, an idyllic oceanfront, starkly contrasted my thoughts, which were rough, raging waves. I stood in my classroom, my eyes glued to the teacher, making sure I did not lose her, even though we stood about five feet away from each other.  Following my class downstairs, I sat in the hallway, but made the mistake of glancing outside the glass doors. A tree was violently jerking in the storm as if it was doing an interpretive dance. I plugged in my headphones and began listening to music, preventing my mind from formulating any disastrous scenarios. Eventually, my mind wandered to the tub of chocolate chip ice cream we had just bought, and thought of how satisfying it would taste after this stressful situation.

The rainstorm vanished just as quickly as it had begun, and I was soon riding the humid bus home. I looked out the window and saw trees fallen on the road and wondered how strong the winds must have been that the trees toppled down like dominoes.  Seeing this, it dawned on me that the power might have gone out in some areas due to damage to electrical grid. Yet, I sat there in my ignorance, confident that nothing like that would happen to my house. Arriving in my neighborhood, the bus slowly stopped and I stepped off the bus. Looking up, the dark ominous clouds threatened to strike again, and I hoped that they would not attack until I was safely in my house, licking ice cream off a spoon.

Walking towards my house, the magnetic attraction of my ice cream gradually became stronger and stronger until I could taste the creamy milk and the rich chocolate on my tongue. I trudged up my driveway and opened the garage code box. Punching in the numbers, I hit enter and waited. Nothing happened. I tried again and jabbed the enter button six times.  A little bewildered, but remaining composed, I walked around to my front door. The screen door was locked, and I knew that the key for it did not exist. Frantically pacing back and forth, I called my mom, and practically sobbed into the phone, telling her what had happened. She told me to wait by the front door under the roof cover until she came home. Fifteen minutes later, after going through different stages of disbelief, I was practically numb and ran out in front of my mother’s car as she pulled into the driveway. 

“I almost ran over you! You have to be more careful around cars!” she scolded me. Ignoring her concern for my life, I informed her that we had bigger problems to deal with than my bad judgment with cars. After examining the situation, my mom told me to wait for my dad. During this wait, I do not think that there has ever been a time in my life when I have come up with so many ideas. Under pressure, our minds can do miraculous things, as well come up with unintelligent solutions to problems. In my case, I thought of a multitude of different ways to break into my own house. One way included a bobby pin, another involved leaps from rooftop to rooftop. Eventually I verbalized my plan to take a hammer to the garage door and my mother forced me to play a game on my phone. Apparently, out of the box ideas were not valued in my household.

After what seemed like an eternity of playing Candy Crush, my dad finally arrived home and took us all out to eat. At the Mediterranean restaurant, my eyes wandered over the desserts section and I thought of my poor ice cream sitting in the warm freezer, melting, because I could not rescue it. When we returned home with our stomachs filled with falafel, it was dark and we were homeless.  My dad kept a pocketknife in his car, so we thought of cutting open the screen, but that would cost money to fix, so we began to pick the lock.

“Who’s there?” our neighbor said in a stern tone, sauntering towards us with a flashlight. “Oh it’s just you guys. You need some help?” We nodded and then my parents went on to explaining what had happened. As they spoke of the slow response of the power company, I suddenly remembered that since our A/C had broken down, I left my window open. The only problem was that it was on the second floor.

“Do you have a ladder?” I blurted out.  Our neighbor nodded, and returned in a few seconds with a rickety old ladder that looked as if it would fall apart with a single breath. Still, I looked at it as if it was the key to heaven. My dad carried it to the back of the house and set it down. My heart raced, not in a fearful way, but excited that I was doing something out of the ordinary. I begged my dad to let me be the one to climb it, and provided very persuasive rationale. He finally gave in. My parents held the ladder down as I carefully ascended to my room. I pushed aside the screen and gracefully fell on top of my piano. Realizing that I was in, I felt like James Bond after he had successfully completed a mission.

I flew down the stairs and opened the front door, with a huge smile cemented on my face. At last, we could finally sleep in our comfortable, plush beds. After returning the ladder, my parents and I gathered around candles and talked about how we needed to get a security system. If I could break into my house so quietly, then maybe others could too. While my parents continued talking, I quietly went to the kitchen, retrieved my chocolate delight, and crept up the stairs. Needless to say, I made sure none of the smooth, sweet chocolate milkshake went to waste.