How the World Works

I was just like any other student in high school. But I had a secret, I couldn’t swim. Its never a good idea to not know how to swim and live in a place surrounded by water, so I did something rather irrational. I joined the swim team. An organization that competes in something that I couldn’t even do yet. So I had my work cut out for me.

Everyday was exhausting, while everyone was working on getting faster I was basically playing catch up. They would be easily pacing themselves as they swam laps, and I had to sprint to even keep up. I had undeniably horrible times for all of my races my first year. Each race slowly dropping time. 1 second here, 2 seconds there. Until finally after 3 years, my times were comparable to everyone else.

In the last year of high school, on the last swim meet, my times were fast enough for states, which on that year was in Maui. I was pretty excited to go to States, after all I did work really hard for 3 years to get there. Probably one of the few things I’ve ever worked hard for in my life.

The plane touches down, and we are finally there. Busting through the terminal doors, the crowd of people scatter and search for their belongings that have been mingling among each other for the last hour. After the bus ride to Dollar with the most exotic driver, picked up our van and dropping our bags off at our hotel.

However, not everything went smoothly. That night it stormed hard. We drove out for dinner and the water was up to past the tires on the main streets. Exiting our now amphibious transportation, I slip off my shoes and leave them behind in hopes that at least something will remain dry for my return. Afterwards of course everyone was in need of a hot shower. Unfortunately for me, I took off my glasses and entered the world of only shapes and colors, just before I went into the bathroom, and ended up slamming my knee into the nearly waist high tub. Swollen and bruised a multitude of colors, and unable to participate in my race the next day. Shrouded in darkness and weighted down negative thoughts there was not much sleep to be had.

After the races were done and it was the day we were heading back, we decided to take a side trip before we hit the airport to the new Krispy Kream, where everyone bought a box of the fresh donuts to take home. Then it was off to drop the van off at Dollar and caught a bus back to the airport terminal getting there just in time to see a guy drive his car into it. Stepping out of his car with a Zippo one hand and a red gas can in the other, he set his car ablaze as the security cautiously moved in to tackle the arsonist. Resulting in all our flights being delayed till the next day, with our coaches struggling to find us a place to crash. It ending up being the worst trip I’ve ever had and probably ever will have.

That is how the world works.