Young Writers Society

Mundane Odyssey

Waking up at 7 o’clock in the morning is never fun. Never has been. Never will be. But it’s something that every Tom, Rick, and Larry has do every Monday through Friday, 365 days a year. It’s especially painful whenever you’re a nocturnal human, a person who lives by the light of the moon and retires by the time the sun slays the darkness and all the regulars begin their own personal odyssey. But unlike the King of Ithaca, I will not have to make a long journey all the way to my beloved Penelope, I simply have do the herculean task of getting out of bed. Out of the bed, I wobble my way to my door. While not a massive, impending barrier between Troy and those who would do her wrong, it does keep the small, yappy chihuahuas out of my room long enough for me to get some sleep.

After debating with myself over the possibility of playing the time old tradition of high school hooky by feigning a pain in the Noggin and weaving a sob story to my dear old Mommy dearest about how horrible the pain is, but I figure my Father would just say I should just stop boohooing about a pain and “be a man.” So what do I do, say screw it and just go to the restroom for my daily shower. After scrubbing all the filth from the previous day off of my body, I head into my laundry room to pick out a delightful little number to slip into. What should a young man wear on a Monday? A sequined suit? Overalls? Shoulder pads? Leggings? After much another round of debating with reflection, I decide on a black polo, Levi’s 501 jeans, and my Good ol’ Doc Marten boots. While the outfit might find the ire of some less educated folks, it’s a fine fit for a growing boy who throws caution to the wind and forgoes popular trends in order to stand out among the sea of skinny jeans, Air Force 1’s, and repetitive clothing designs. Now comes the actual herculean task: defrosting my car. It’s as if Old Man Winter has a grudge against my little Ford Focus. No matter the vehicular preferences of the elements, I still need to get to school. Getting into the car, I survey the windshields to see how bad the frost is. Eyup, Old Man Winter is not a Ford man. This becomes quite apparent after running the wipers at full speed for a few minutes. Not even a dent. So now, I just have to crank the heat up and hope the defroster gets my rear windshield. Minutes pass… nothing happens. Few more minutes pass… Yep, I’m gonna need to scrape. I pop open my trunk and acquire the ice scrape of ice scraping. Quite a redundant name, but hey, it gets the job done. When Old Man Winter’s unfunny social experiment is finally removed from my little red Ford. I drive off, hoping that Lady Luck won’t kick me in the head and call me a swine.

The drive through the winding, ice covered roads was nothing but spectacularly uneventful. I mean, tt was as eventful as a five minute drive could be. No wrecks, no flat tires, not even a piece of litter on the road. Even if something interesting did happen on my way to my local learning facility for teenagers, I doubt would save me from any sort of malaise or boredom I might feel. I think most teens don’t like school simply for the boredom that is caused from having to learn subjects that they aren’t interested in. The other half just don’t like being told what to do. But for me, the reason is because of the people. Teens aren’t the most mature people in the world. If someone were to take all the worst aspects of adults and times it by one hundred, all they would get is a teenager. A teenager with a scraggly mustache, poor choice in fashion, minimum wage job, a serious lack of understanding of the world they inhabit and a need to try every drug and substance ever invented. At least, that’s it all seems to me, a teen in the early stages of NEET-hood.

Never really liked interacting with people, at least with people I don’t know that well or don’t share a common interest with. Granted, I’ll talk to folks older than me for a couple of moments, But with teenagers, I feel like I can’t really talk to them. Most are either too different from me to converse with or I just find them so infuriatingly obnoxious that a having a small chat with them is like an hour of auditory torture. Even if I’m not talking to them, I can hear them conversing and wrestling with their friends. And when I hear them doing these mundane things, all I can think is “Why are these five year olds in high school?” These kids will be throwing food at each other, arguing over teenage loves, screaming, kicking, all the things that are expected of youngins. Now I know I can be a stupid kid, but at least I’m a stupid kid in the privacy of my own home. These kids, they are stupid all day, everyday, 24/7, 365 days a year, dull as a pocket knife that was used to cut down a massive chestnut tree. It’s tiresome to deal with people you don’t like, but hey, that’s just how the biscotti crumbles. Too bad my biscotti seemed to crumble into my coffee. Either way, I manage to get through a full Monday of school--book work, learning other languages, writing stories of about a sad teen with nothing better to do than write stories about their life. All the kind of stuff that makes people go “Yep, that’s a teenager.”

Whatever that “teenage” stuff is, I can sure tell you that I don’t want anything to do with it. So what does one person do whenever they do not want to partake in typical teenage stuff? I say, go to the gym. Of course, I was already gonna go to the gym with my granddad, but seeing as how my fellow students were acting like children, I think I might just go were kids are in low quantity. Thanks to my ability to guess the obvious, there were no kids at the gym. Thankfully the only people I have to deal with are the elderly and thankfully the elderly are much quieter than a bunch of babbling babies disguised as teenagers. As I enter my gym, I notice something about the building. Something odd. That was when I realized…. WE GOT NEW MACHINES! Eyup, new stationary bikes, new treadmills, and new weight machines. My grandfather and I were just about to start our workout, the owner stepped in front of us to tell us what we feared the most. “I’m sorry, we’re closed.” My little heart sank as we were made to exit the premise. I heart broken, but not by much. So instead of going to the gym, my grandfather and I went over to the local subway and ate some lunch. Everyone knows if you can’t work out, then just stuff your face, and that is exactly what I did! Consuming heart healthy meatball subs, my granddad and I would make a mess of the table we were sitting at before returning to his house. After a quick session of goodbyes and hugs, I return to my car. As I start up my car, a familiar tune starts up on my radio. “Daisuke,” I say under my breath as I ride of into the sunset, very much sure of what will happen tomorrow.