All I saw was tape—a whole heck of a lot of tape. I heard some girl say, “We worked three hours on this,” clearly trying to hold back some tears. I thought, “You worked three hours of your life putting tape on the wall to show school spirit?” That seems a bit excessive. And then I looked down. Paper covered the floor.

I showed up at school this morning eager to see what my classmates had been hyping up for weeks. But as soon as I stepped into the building, I was greeted by a sea of tape on the walls and a floor covered in paper and glitter. It was like a craft store exploded in aisles A, B, C, and D.

I muttered a quick prayer to any available deity and dove into the chaos, rounding up a team of other sympathetic souls to help salvage what we could. We worked tirelessly (we worked for 5 minutes)  to reassemble the mess, using whatever sticky substances we could find (let’s just say the tape had seen better days).

During lunch, I thought I could finally relax, but no. The seniors needed help. I ended up carrying ladders, holding ladders, and moving ladders—looking back, I think they just wanted me to help with the ladders. But that’s unimportant. I now know my way around a ladder (she says after stubbing her toe more times in five minutes than she has fingers for – pinkies were sacrificed). 

By the end of the day, despite having heavier eyebags than a backpack, I felt a sense of relief knowing that everyone’s hard work hadn’t gone to waste. Let’s just hope it doesn’t all come crashing down again tomorrow (just kidding… maybe).