Missing the Bus

Today I woke up at my usual time, an hour before I had to leave for the school bus. But today, I was tired and lazy, so I turned off my first alarm. 15 minutes later, my second alarm goes off, and I wake up, confused and in a daze. I sat up, petted my dog who had been sleeping on the floor, and I turned my light on. Then, I got cold, seeing as it was 35 degrees that morning outside. So, I get back into my bed and under the blankets, where I accidentally fell asleep again. 30 minutes later, I had 8 minutes until I had to leave. I rush out of my bed, quickly find clothes to wear, and my mom comes in and asks if I just woke up, and in the middle of me yawning, I reply yes. I quickly brush my teeth, I grab my laptop and water, and hurry out of the house.

My driveway is dirt and has a major downward slope going down. While I’m going down, I see the bus’s headlights flashing at me and I still have to go halfway down to reach the bottom. Now, my bus driver has been starting up this rule where everybody has to have a flashlight on before she picks them up. I, who had just woken up 8 minutes ago, did not remember to turn on my flashlight. So, I reach the bottom of the driveway before the bus arrives, but because of my flashlight not being on, the bus keeps going.

Now I am panicking, and I take off in a full-blown sprint towards the bus with my flashlight shining against it. The bus does not stop for me and shows no mercy, so with it being 35 degrees outside, I have to walk a quarter of a mile in a long-sleeve shirt and jeans. I make the walk, and when I go inside I tell my mom that I missed the bus and I need a ride, to which she said she will give me one. I was very grateful and said thank you. I recognized my mistake and see where I messed up and I will fix it.

My mistake was procrastinating actually waking up and getting ready for school. My other mistake was ignoring my alarms and getting back into bed just because I was cold. And my final mistake was not having my flashlight on before the bus came. With these three mistakes, I can see a clear solution: wake up earlier or get more sleep.  The night before, I went to bed around 11:30 pm, so I got around 6 hours of sleep. I also should’ve woken up on the first alarm and not let myself go back to sleep. The consequence I got for missing the bus was having to do the chores for the day. I would say that I learned my lesson and I won’t miss the bus again. 

“School Bus” by orangebrompton is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.