A Step Closer

Today I was actually one more step closer to a complete and total breakdown. However, this time not from the unbearable pressures of the world, but rather, it came from being completely annoyed by silly little kids!

Unlike the previous rainy day, which gave a premonition of things to come, more specifically a dreadful day, this day started out bright, shiny, and windy. I was prepared to really seize the day. I went out with my brother to the Adopt-A-Spot clean up at Wilson High School. I had a startling and thought-provoking conversation with an old friend from high school, Christa. Amazingly, she will attend Virginia Commonwealth University in the fall for Biomedical Engineering; I may get to see her then. For the moment that we were at the event, we scooped up countless cigarette butts (I hope that all cigarettes in the world get banned, incinerated, and nuclear bombed, that way they would never be on the ground again). I inquired about several things, and received further confirmation that most things at the school remained the same, although now, most the people who were going to be graduating were going to attend University of Virginia (hm really?). This conversation concluded swiftly, and I was reunited with old members of the Youth Advisory Commission. I was a member of the commission up until I graduated last year. It is a nice group that aspires to help out with the city events and get more youth involved in Portsmouth city’s events.

We ran off to church suddenly and I decided to, instead of going with my dad and brother to their swimming lessons at the local Girl’s Inc. facility, I chose to stay at the Fourth Baptist Church and volunteer with their health fair/blood drive. Boy was I in for a surprise, literally the time of my life.

Because there were apparently not enough adult volunteers, I was tasked with helping out with the popcorn machine, while my friend Dexter operated the snow cone machine beside me. I had little experience with the popcorn machine. It took me no time at all to make it right. People thought it was tragically nasty because it lacked salt. I was going to put salt on it, but I was informed that we were at a health fair. Ergo, we had to sacrifice taste for health by ignoring the fact that we had flavored salt and to act as if we lacked it. I managed to add some bits of salt to it because it was nasty. I cannot imagine how people who do not eat salt (since apparently everyone at the health fair is plagued with a heart disease that prevents any salt in their diet!) can eat popcorn. In order to give it out you have to make it good. It was up to the person to decide if they wanted to blatantly ignore the fact that this was a health fair and get something that would please their taste buds and make them feel indulgent.

My annoyance level began to rise at this part of the day because the adults were all cramming around trying to make sure that I made it right. Of course I did because they were all starring down my necks. The thing that got me though was how some people blatantly said right in my face that it was all right. I was thinking how in the world you could say such a harsh remark right in my face. I could see if it was at my fast food restaurant and they said it, but right here in front of me, no way! Of course, I could not speak out in rage for they were the very people who knew me to be timid and kind. Therefore, I just brushed it off. Luckily I took out my rage through the making of popcorn. Unfortunately for me, when I get into a rage I do things perfectly and so much better so this caused more people to flock to the popcorn.

The day grew longer and soon I was called into the church to undergo a Glaucoma testing. I really didn’t want to leave my station as it was fun to stand in the wind and make popcorn while listening to the people’s remarks, but I digressed and under the urging of my friend’s mom went in to get tested. I was slightly disturbed over this for I knew that I did not have Glaucoma or any other eye disease for I had my eyes checked a year ago. I was not also going to get any other test done that day. They offered the Sickle Cell test, which I knew I had not had because I have not been sexually active to contract since my last test for it. I was not going to give blood because I do not really like blood nor believe in the giving of blood, it is life energy we are giving away. The test lasted about thirty minutes and I made it through. One funny thing to mention is that I had too use an excessive amount of the eye numbing solution because I kept closing my eye cause the solution stung (even though the guy said it wouldn’t). I felt so silly.

I ran back to my station and nearly wanted to close it down and throw people away. The machine was in an utter state of ruin, figuratively. I had to make more popcorn because there were now more people than ever. There was trash on the ground everywhere. There were even twenty billion kids swarming around. I would have been all right with the kids there, but they were talking so loudly that I wanted to do something, which I will not say. Now I did say to them a few times to stop shouting and go away. They did at first but then they completely got out of hand and stayed around. I had to get adult powers to come and remove them but then they came back. At this point I gave up. One other thing that set me off the line was that the power cord was in the water and unplugged. This resulted in burnt popcorn because there was popcorn popping when it was unplugged. Everyone knows that burning popcorn is an unforgivable sin, so I had to quickly rush to do something or else there would have been divine intervention. I had to completely remove myself from this environment for it was bound to produce some horrific results as the children continued to pour in. I made myself some good popcorn then I left.

The rest of the day was a bit more lax; I managed to cool down with a trip to McDonalds and a trip to Sam’s Club. I even managed to find the TV that I wanted for the price that I wanted. I cannot wait to get it.

Today, I learned that in order to stay calm during the times of great disturbance, that the best thing to do is to simply remove myself from it. If I had stayed any longer no telling what I would have done. I would have probably decided to take out my anger on the kids. Although they were deserving of it, it would not be right for they were only kids and did not know the great annoying things that they were doing, for example not throwing their trash away and pouring it on the ground. Not putting trash in a trashcan is an unforgivable sin! Ultimately, we should strive to stay calm while under these circumstances. Once we notice that we cannot continue to persevere then we should remove ourselves from the environment.