Happy Vetrans Day

My alarm went off at 7:00 A.M. as usual. It might have been light outside, but I can never be sure at 7:00 A.M, really.
Approximately 20 snooze buttons later, I rolled out of my bed. Which was a tremendously bad idea because my bed is lofted. Like, a lot.
Luckily, I landed right on my laundry basket. The very same laundry basket that was filled with clean clothes. And, you know, surrounded by all of my dirty ones waiting for their turn. Well, they were all dirty now!
I tripped over the massive pile of Target merch and fumbled for the light. Maybe those super intense blinds we put on our windows weren’t a good idea. It was like a cold winter’s night in my room – perfect for hibernating, not good for functioning.
I used the light of my angry alarm clock to find the switch. The CV light seemed creepier than usual, casting an eerie gray light over my normally cheerful pink room. And my hallway was … silent? That never happens. I figured something had to be wrong. Maybe I forgot to change my clock and was actually an hour behind the rest of the world. Or maybe everyone had been murdered by some psychotic mask-wearing, axe-wielding, smelly old ghost murderer. Not like a murderer who kills ghosts. That would be dumb. No, this was probably a murderer who died but left his soul on Earth to prey on sweet innocent little Quinnies like myself.
Ew, was that cold sweat? Ugh, gross! I didn’t have time to fear for my life anyway. I only had twenty minutes before I was fashionably late and I desperately needed a shower. I bathed as quickly as I could, hoping to avoid a Psycho scene in my fluffy pink bathroom. I hear blood usually ruins hot pink towels, and that would just be such a mess.
I tried to pick the clean clothes out of the massive pile (no guarantees!) and practically poured mascara on my face. I glanced in the mirror before brushing my teeth and saw in the reflection that November 11th had been a big red circle around it on my calendar. Well, today was November 11th. Oh no. I hoped that the ghost murderer hadn’t come in the middle of the night to circle the day that he would come to chop off all my toes. That would have been kind of anti-climactic.
I held my breath and turned to inspect the calendar. Something was typed under the obscenely big red circle and I had to squint to make it out … Veterinarians’ Day? Was that even real? It definitely wasn’t terrifying. My heart stopped racing and I turned back to my morning routine.
Then it came to me. It was Vegetarians’ Day! Obviously.
I wondered why I had decorated the day so enthusiastically. I love Nug Night too much to ever even think about being a vegetarian.
I brushed my teeth until I was satisfied with their squeaky clean-ness, grabbed my books, and headed out the door. It was a little gray outside. Not horror movie gray, though. I had been so off on that!
I started off to my class, feeling rather pleased that I had solved the November 11th mystery. At the CV gate I ran into a girl from my Spanish class. I remembered that time she refused to eat a chicken quesadilla because she was vegetarian. Today was her time to shine! I gave her a big hug, a “Happy Vegetarians’ Day,” and waved good-bye to her as I continued the trek to Pangborn.
With two minutes to spare before I was ten minutes late, I was almost to my Statistics of Canned Foods class when it dawned on me: wasn’t Vegetarians’ Day technically a holiday? Didn’t the government get a day off? I could be president if I really wanted to be (according to my mommy!) so why didn’t I have the day off, too?
Yes, I decided. A day off was exactly what I needed. I could fix my horrendous laundry situation, fix the blinds in my room, and finally catch up on sleep so maybe I could start hitting the snooze button only, like, ten times each morning. That would be refreshing.
I started walking back to my room, but stopped. The guilt was setting in. Not the guilt for missing class, but the guilt of wasting a perfectly good day off doing chores. I’m young and healthy and should be exploring the United States like Sacajawea, I said to myself. Even the sky was agreeing with me as the sun started to peep out from behind the clouds.
The beautiful city of D.C. was calling to me: Christina! Museums are free! Christina! There are so many trees to sit under while you watch tourists make fools of themselves! You know you want to!
I did want to. I wanted to eat lunch in some weird café with a crazy name that I didn’t understand. And then I wanted a fancy cupcake. I wasn’t going to be picky about where it was from. There were more important things to worry about. Like if there were any jazz clubs open at nine in the morning. I definitely needed to hit up a jazz club.
Before I could start off on any fabulous adventures, I needed to go back to my room to get my SmartTrip. I rarely carry it with me, you see, because I have a knack for losing things. I practically skipped back to Quinn, all the while imagining my Statistics teacher drawling out my name while taking attendance. “Wolfgram? … Wolfgram?” Oh, how delightful!
I opened my door and rushed in to find my card, but of course slipped on a rogue pair of sweatpants on the floor. I wondered if really should just take a little time to do laundry. I would still have the afternoon to gallivant around the city.
I gathered all of my clothes and dumped them into my hamper. The hamper that was supposed to be under my bed.
Bed.
I probably had time for a wee nap as well. I mean, it was vital to get back on some sort of coherent sleeping schedule was so important, and what would help more than taking a forty-five minute nap at 9:30 A.M.?
I crawled into bed and told myself to dream of the adventures I would have on Vegetarians’ Day. Maybe I could dance on one of the floats in the parade.
Next thing I knew, it was dark. Whatever, it was always dark in my room thanks to our fancy blinds. But then I checked the clock. 9:30 P.M.?! I had slept through the entire day! I had missed everything! Even the Vegetarians’ Day parade!
Moral of the story? Over-thinking leads to oversleeping.