By George Raphael-McElroy ‘23

I woke up in the morning and it looked bright out; my first thought was that I overslept, but when I checked my phone, it was only 4:30 a.m. I was a little confused. Instead of sleeping for another 30 minutes and teasing myself, I just got ready a little earlier. As I was going to my basement to grab my laundry, I noticed that it had snowed, and that was the reason for it looking so bright outside.

As a teenage boy, the first thought that came to my head was to try and convince my mom to let me and my brother stay home from school…but how? Well, first I had to check outside to see how much snow I was working with; can this actually be a legitimate reason for not going to school since my drive to school is already 30 minutes? I opened the door, and as soon as I did, my hope died; there was barely two inches of snow on the ground. Although there was not much to work with, I was still not going to give up on getting to stay home.

I ran outside and started to shovel snow from the street onto and around my car; then I could tell my mom that the car was stuck, and I couldn’t drive to school. After doing it for a while and not trying to make it look obvious that I covered my car, I got in the car and tested it out to see if I actually got my car stuck. It was a success! My little 1998 Honda Civic wasn’t going anywhere and hearing my tires spin, engine rev, and seeing my car not move was all I needed.

Everything was going good until my plan fell through. I woke up my mom two hours earlier than she usually wakes up (probably not the best idea) and told her about the snow and car. She looked outside her window and told me how she had to walk and take two buses to get to her school. “Blah, blah, blah” was all I really heard as I walked out of the room, feeling defeated and having to go to school.

Well, now my car was stuck, so there was only one thing to do; wake up my sophomore brother and make him shovel out my car. Luckily, he was already dressed and ready to go. I told him mom said that we were going to have to take the bus since my car was stuck; he complained for a while, but no one wants to take the bus at 6:30 a.m. He eventually shoveled it out for me. I slipped walking out to my car to go to school, and that was when I was done with everything. I sat in my freezing car with snow-covered pants, thinking to myself “maybe next time.”