By Sidney Gillmore

7:00. I woke up this morning to the yellowish light shining on my face. Slowly opening  my eyes, I looked at my mom standing in the doorway. She turned around and walked down the hall. My eyes closed once again, knowing that I had at least ten more minutes before I HAD to be up. Peacefully in my slumber I was, until I heard the stomps in the hall. I threw off my covers and jumped out of bed, quickly putting on all my clothes, the time now 7:10. I scavenged around my room looking for the same black leggings, black shirt, and white coat. I looked in the mirror at my rat’s nest of hair. I brushed it aggressively, and put it back, because what else was there to do? It was now 7:18. I thought to myself, “just 10 more minutes.” I got back into my bed, wrapping myself tightly in my fuzzy blue blanket, and closed my eyes, waking up every minute thinking I was going to be late. At some point I was done with that, and decided I would just go downstairs. “7:28.” I grabbed my computer and closed out of HBO Max from the night before, sliding my Uggs on my feet as I shuffled to the door and down the hall, my shoes finally fully on once I made it to the top of the stairs. Clunk, clunk, clunk, the bottom of my shoes slammed, as I walked down my steps one foot at a time with my feet fully flat. As I reached the bottom, I looked to my left at my pink backpack, all the zippers wide open. I walked over, shoved my computer in the top slot, closed every zipper, and threw what felt like a 50 pound bag over my shoulder. I turned the corner and walked into the kitchen, to the sight of my mom cooking eggs, and my dad, who had just come back with Starbucks for my brother. By this point it was now 7:34; as usual, we were running late. I walked over to the freezer and grabbed a handful of frozen grapes, which had become my new obsession. Grapes in hand, I walked out to the car, which was locked. Annoyed, I walked back inside, grabbed my moms coat, walked back outside, and got in the car. I sat there for two minutes, and it was now 7:38. My brother walked up to the door, breakfast sandwich in hand, then my mom, with her plate of eggs and pack of cucumbers. They walked up to the car, at what I thought was the slowest speed ever,but in reality it had only been like twelve seconds. My mom started the car, and I plugged in my phone to play music. As we backed out of the garage I looked at my phone. “7:40.”