Disclaimer: This article is satirical, and for entertainment purposes only.
The return to in-person learning from a year and a half of online school has been turbulent at best. Many people have found that the daily routine of getting up in the morning, getting dressed in fresh clothes every day, and leaving the house in the morning extremely difficult. This is especially apparent during passing period, when the halls stink of B.O. and everyone walks at a sluggish one mile an hour.
Of course, we can’t ignore the ever-present gray clouds haunting the school day; and no, I don’t mean the cafeteria food. COVID-19 and the pandemic has caused a lot of fear and anxiety for many Franklin students, but these fears have gone unfounded with how much work Portland Public Schools has done to keep us safe.
When entering Franklin High School in the morning, you will most likely see multiple students with their masks under their noses or chins. This is obviously how masks are supposed to be worn, despite what the CDC may say, so feel free to expose your schnoz at every moment available.
Now, you’re off to class. If your teacher scolds you for having your mask under your nose, don’t worry! Just ignore them. It’s more likely you won’t even have a teacher anyways, or your class will be taught by some random person found on the street with questionable qualifications. Your usual teacher has been out sick for some time now, or taking a mental health day to make up for the years taken off their life from dealing with students like you!
After a while in your class with half the students missing, you realize you need to use the bathroom. Simply ask the empty chair where your teacher usually sits if you can go. They never say no.
During your trip to the bathroom, you may find multiple students without masks on, vaping, taking selfies or the like. Deeply inhale their COVID-infested breath; natural immunity is more effective than any vaccine. You look at the stalls and realize that the door on one of them is hanging on by a thread, and that the toilet paper dispenser in another is still missing from the “devious licks” trend a while back. Have no fear! A paper towel will suffice if you can’t find TP. You just have to give the paper towel dispenser a good hard punch so you can get whatever scraps are at the end of the roll, if any. You may need to just skip the wiping step, and that’s normal now.
You’re done doing your business and decide it’s probably a good idea to wash your hands, considering we are in a pandemic and all. You walk up to the only sink in the bathroom and discover that it’s broken! Hooray! You don’t need to wash your nasty hands. Even if you could use the sink, the soap dispenser hasn’t been full for weeks.
You return to your class and use the hand sanitizer provided in every classroom. It shoots out aggressively, hitting your classmate in the eye. You were able to get some on your hand in the process, and rub the slimy substance into your hands as your classmate runs out of the room to go to the nurse.
Finally, your morning classes are over and you are starving! Time to go to the cafeteria and get some food. There is a large hoard of your fellow students crowding around the lunch line, making it impossible to social distance, even if it made a difference. After fifteen minutes in the lunch line mosh pit, you finally grab your grub.
Part of the announcement from yesterday echoes in your mind: “stay six feet apart when eating.” You shake the thought out of your head, realizing that the school simply does not have the square footage for everyone to stay six feet apart. You sit with your friends, half of them out with COVID and one of them coughing suspiciously, and eat your off-brand Uncrustable.
You think to yourself, “thank God we are not online.”
