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Missed Flight (S&D)

by Anonymous
(Stanford, CA)

I had spent the day at a museum dedicated to the moon with my friends Krista and Amanda, and we were getting ready to leave soon. Just as we were about to head out the door, Krista said she had to go to the bathroom. I was really annoyed because everyone kept having to go to the bathroom at different times all day, and I was sick of waiting for them. Obviously they should have just coordinated having to pee with whenever I did. Amanda and I waited for Krista outside the bathroom for a few seconds and then decided it was too boring, so I texted her to come find us in the alien play area.


There was a huge blobby green tower replicating the homes that moon aliens made for themselves. We ran up the inside of the tower and came down the slide that circled its outside. After doing this a few times, we realized that it wasn't socially acceptable for us to have taken over a tower meant for five-year-olds to play on, so we left and waited outside. While we were waiting, I suddenly remembered that Krista's and my flight for Spring Break was leaving at 4:15, in ten minutes. I panicked because she still hadn't come out of the bathroom. We stormed back inside, to find her waiting outside the bathroom. She was really upset because she hadn't received my text and had tried to call a bunch of times, but my phone apparently wasn't working. I told her that our flight left in ten minutes, and we
needed to hurry. She was positive that it left at 5:30, but we checked and that's when it was supposed to arrive. I'm not sure what happened to Amanda, but Krista and I sprinted across the parking lot until we found a bright orange taxi to take us to the airport.

Somehow he drove us all the way across the city in about two minutes, because when we got to the Southwest counter at the airport, the minute hand was only a tiny bit past the five. Unfortunately, we were stuck at the end of a very long line of fat, middle-aged men. They were wearing a mix of brightly colored Hawaiian shirts and rally gear. The line was moving very slowly, and no one in front of us was even there for a flight, they were just picking up prize water bottles for being valued customers. There were several water bottle types to choose from, but the one that was made to look like a giant multicolor swirled lollipop seemed to be the most popular. By the time we made it up the counter, they told us that they couldn't let us on the flight this late for security reasons, but that we could take the next flight out tomorrow morning.

At this point, I woke up to a noise and tried to figure out whether I could tell that I'd just been paralyzed or whether I had just been holding my breath and felt like I could move once I started breathing (this explanation made sense at the time, not so much anymore).


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