Also Maggie

mehharry: Skip down to the bottom for the point. (Although the story, though long, is petty important.) Yesterday I went to school like I normally do everyday. I arrived at around 7:05 AM, 20 minutes before school starts. I was excited because the closest parking space to the school was open. Quickly, I turned away and backed into the space. In awe at how perfect things were starting that morning, I switched off my ‘97 Nissan Maxima and turned to Maggie, who was sitting in the passenger’s seat. “What about that?” I asked slyly to Maggie, sure that the answer would be nothing but praise. But instead, she turned her head to the wind shield and sighed, “It’s about to rain.” I, too, looked at the wind shield and saw what she was talking about. Drops of water slowly fell onto the auto, and they fell hard. Baker High School has such and architecture that the front of it has an immense stairway leading up into the classrooms upstairs and covers the car lane below. This giant gateway wasn’t 30 feet away from us (like I said, we got the closest spot). “Okay, we can probably run under the stairway before we get wet,” I told Maggie as I was reaching for my door handle. She agreed and we both sprinted underneath the stairs to wait for school to start. For some reason, Maggie was obviously not aware that the staircase formed a free ceiling because instead of stopping, she ran across the car lane and hugged the wall of the school in an attempt to keep dry. I followed along and stood next to her. I wiped invisible raindrops from my clothes and felt an emptiness in my right pocket. I checked the right pocket, also empty. I turned to Maggie and said, “I forgot my cell phone.” She put on a face of disappointment and replied, “Okay, run back an get it.” I started back across the car lane when an instructor or coach (probably the latter) stopped me asking, “Where are you going?” To which I replied, “Back to my car, I left my book.” He responded by saying, “Not without a pass.” “But school hasn’t even started yet.” “You need a pass to go to the parking lot.” “I was just there not 30 seconds ago.” “Well, you need a pass.” Infuriated, I stepped backward and stood with Maggie. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard!” I would say. “I’ll just go get a pass right now.” Maggie stopped me from going into the office, saying, “You can’t get inside the school until school starts.” And then, I had no idea how long I had to wait, because I had no phone and no wristwatch (but that’s because I never had one of those). “Whatever,” I replied and stood next to the school for about ten minutes. The bell tolled and I strolled inside to the office (which at the time was less than 100 feet away from my car). I walked in to find a sole woman sitting at the front desk. She was on the phone but insisted that I interrupt her. “May I help you,” she said, finger to phone. “I need a pass to my car,” I answered, pointing backward towards the parking lot. “Honey….You need to have a pass from your teacher to come down here for things like that.” “A…pass? I need a pass to get a pass? “Excuse me, I’m on the phone.” “Yes, ma’am,” I replied and walked out of the office. The time was 7:19 then, six minutes before class started. I walked through the hallway without Maggie (who had already left, thinking that I was going to hold her up). I climbed the stairs on Stairway Four. Then I dragged myself into my first block, very frustrated, and explained what was happening. Everyone got a kick out of it, and gave his or her own comments on the situation. My first block teacher arrived at 7:30, five minutes after class had started. I explained to him what happened and that I needed a pass to get a pass to get my book. He gave me a pass, and I went to the office. The same woman was not there anymore, and the student in her place gave me the parking-lot pass without looking up. When I went to my car, I felt that I had to grab a book, since I would be breaking the school’s rules by bringing my cell phone in. I grabbed a psychology book, Maggie’s (it turns out I already had my copy of the psychology in my book-bag at that time, so I had to carry two psychology books around the rest of the day). ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ My point: The preposterous rules that were set forth at this particular school are not about order. In fact, after what happened to me to-day, they turned out to bring up quite the opposite. These rules were set forth for control. That’s what is wrong with this generation’s youth. The teenage instinct is to rebel. Every adolescent wants to rebel. It’s what happens to people as they grow older. These rules are scribed in order to control teen rebellion, of course, only making it much worse. There isn’t enough freedom in to-day’s society. Everyone has to be in charge of everyone else. No one can mind his or her own business. If everyone could learn to respect everyone else’s privacy and freedoms, well we’d live in a perfect world.