I And My Friend Got Reprimanded While Others Slacked Off
All names have been changed to protect people's identities.
Two days ago on Friday, my high school required all students (except seniors) to work on a community service project. This consisted mostly of raking leaves and cleaning up yards. The people we helped were very kind and thankful, and overall the day was pretty enjoyable - getting to be outside and all that.
However, some people did not put in as much work as others. Usually I would be fine with that - we worked all day, and everyone needs a break sometime. But some people took it to an extreme.
The majority of the people who slacked were girls. At the first house, they stood around for 10 minutes talking about going to the movies. Meanwhile, everyone else was still working. I didn't mind at this point - we were almost done. That was when we went to our next location - the public park.
There were already some other kids working there. Three boys were raking weeds and leaves out of the 10ft by 20ft sandbox. And that thing was FILLED with vines and dead grass.
Our group was going to be split into two - one to help clean the park, and one to help clean out a ba<x>sement. The guys from our group chose to help with the ba<x>sement, and I was going to go with them and my friends Zach and Evan. But I changed my mind - I stayed behind to help with the sandbox. All of the girls in our group stayed at the park too.
One of the boys working to clean out the sandbox is my friend Ben. He and the other guys had been working for about an hour, and there were several piles of weeds and grass that they had cleaned out next to the sandbox. I got garbage bags from a teacher and started filling them with the dead grass. While we worked, I talked with Ben about animations he's made. However, no matter how much the four of us talked, we never stopped working until the job was done.
The other girls were supposed to be raking up leaves. However, after a few minutes, the four of us noticed what they were actually doing... not much of anything. The ten of them were clustered together in front of the cell phone one of them was holding up. They were doing nothing but taking pictures - which is what they did for the next half hour!!!
After that half hour, the teacher noticed and escorted them to a new location.
For the next hour after that, the four of us finished cleaning the giant sandbox, AND raked up the leaves that the girls had left behind. There is a building in the park with a fridge and rows of tables inside. On one of my trips to the building to get more garbage bags, I thought I would bring back water bottles for us - the guys had been working in the sun for about 2 hours now. I thought I might find some in the fridge, but it was completely empty.
So went back to the sand pit with another black garbage bag - tied around my neck like a cape. I held the ends out and ran back to the group, yelling, "I'm Batman!". After that, we found the old motherboard of a phone buried in the sand. No one else wanted it, so I got to keep it.
Eventually, the leaves and dead grass were all bagged up and we took them up to the building, along with the rakes. Thankfully for us, there was a water fountain outside that I hadn't noticed before. It was just about time for lunch, - the rest of my old group was already there. Our friends Zach and Evan joined us at our table - they had gone to clean out the ba<x>sement. Apparently Evan had found a bunch of cool stuff that the owner had let him keep - a dartboard, an old radio, it sounded like they had a fun time there. As we waited for everyone else to get back for lunch, Ben showed us Flipnote animations he'd made on his DSi.
We all had about an hour and a half for lunch. After everyone had come back and eaten, there was still a good 30 minutes left. Nearly everyone went outside to play in the park. Ben and I stayed in the building, drawing and listening to music.
Then it was time to go to the next location. Our job was to clean up the leaves in a yard which... appeared to have no leaves in it. Aha, it was a trick! The dead leaves were actually em<x>bedded in flowerbeds and hidden behind thorny bushes, which I reached into with my bare hands. After a while, Ben and I went to work at the front of the yard, picking leaves out of a long flowerbed. It was filled with plants that are similar to Lamb's Ear plants - very soft to the touch, but shaped more like dandelion leaves. As we worked, we talked about the Thomas the Tank Engine series - the rocky transition from the original series to CG, James' annoying voice, and Ben told me about the diesel characters - who I don't know much about.
We also had a few unpleasant encounters with bugs - I found a spider in the flowerbed and a large maggot on one of the leaves.
Before we could finish cleaning out the leaves, it was already time to go to our final location. When we got there, most everyone got to work right away in different sections of the yard. Once again, our primary ob<x>jective was to clean up leaves. We joined a girl who was pulling leaves out of a large, untended flowerbed that ran the length of the house. Yes, ANOTHER flowerbed. And if we thought the last yard had bugs, this one had millions. As we pulled out leaves, we found anthills, roach-like bugs, pill bugs, an electrical cord, and... the first wasp.
Ben froze and said that there was a yellow-jacket right behind me. We got away from that area of the yard and went to work at clearing away leaves from between the boat and shed. Ben told me that he has a 50/50 chance of being deathly allergic to wasps and bees. However he does not have an epipen. We had only been by the boat for less than a minute when the wasp - or a new one - whizzed past us, flying over us and then behind the boat. Ben's whole demeanor changed, he seemed terrified. We walked toward the patio, looking for a safer place in the yard to work, when the wasp zoomed right over his head. I turned around to see him cowering in fear. That was when I knew we had to get out of there.
"Come on, we need to leave."
I led the way onto the patio, where the teacher was. There were also five kids there who were supposed to be working.
"We need to leave. Ben has a 50/50 chance of being deathly allergic to wasps and bees, and there are yellow jackets in this yard that keep following us. We need to go somewhere else."
The teacher said no - she didn't think the school would have let him on the field trip if he had the allergy.
I know that this is absolutely not true - my little brother is allergic to red dye, which makes him violently ill. The school does not know about it, but his allergy still exists.
A girl sitting on the patio doing nothing, agreed with the teacher. Except she was even less polite about the matter.
She restated what the teacher said in a snarkier fashion, then told him that if the school didn't know about it, then there was no possible way that he could be allergic - she said he was lying.
She completely invalidated the fear he was feeling, and the possibility that his life was in danger.
The teacher was nice enough to let us work in a wasp-less section of the yard. Ben walked across the patio, saying to me, "We need to get that rake." The girl made another snarky comment at Ben while she sat on her ass doing nothing.
We spent the next 20 minutes cleaning leaves out from under the deck. Unfortunately, the rake gave Ben splinters.
We saw that, once again, there were 10 kids hiding behind the side of the house doing absolutely nothing. Out of the 20 people there, only about 5 of us were working.
After that though, we were finally done.
On the bus back to school, Ben looked like he was about to pass out. He kept asking people if he looked okay - his eyes were glazed over and they could tell he was exhausted.
Back at school, we were required to have a discussion about "what we did today". Ben acknowledged the fact that too many people slacked off. I was worried that they would lash out at him - considering that included about half the people in the classroom. Thankfully, they didn't.
After that, Ben went to the nurse to get the splinters out of his hand, and I ran out of the classroom to have a complete breakdown in the girl's bathroom. I was so angry that most people were slacking off while Ben wasn't allowed to leave an area when his life was in danger.
Basically I cried uncontrollably and hit my head against the stall door repeatedly, I can still feel the bruise. A teacher came in after me and I told her how angry I was at that girl for saying those things to Ben.
When I went back into the classroom, it was empty except for the two teachers, Ben, and me. We both have anxiety disorders - he has Generalized and I have Social. He called what I had an anxiety attack, but I'm not sure.
We kind of laughed it off, then we stood in the hallway with some teachers while everyone else had an assembelly in the gym. We whispered a bit about how the speaker was being a bit rude. When a teacher told him to be quiet, I started crying uncontrollably again because I was so angry that someone was mad at him again.
He hugged me until I stopped crying, and then we stood there for another ten minutes until school was over.
He said it's a good thing that we're friends.
I'm not so sure. I feel like I'll destroy everything I touch, including him.
I wanted to protect him so badly that it backfired and all I could do was cry, and then he had to help ME.
Tomorrow is Monday. If those kids in math class start mimicking him again, I will personally kick their asses.
Two days ago on Friday, my high school required all students (except seniors) to work on a community service project. This consisted mostly of raking leaves and cleaning up yards. The people we helped were very kind and thankful, and overall the day was pretty enjoyable - getting to be outside and all that.
However, some people did not put in as much work as others. Usually I would be fine with that - we worked all day, and everyone needs a break sometime. But some people took it to an extreme.
The majority of the people who slacked were girls. At the first house, they stood around for 10 minutes talking about going to the movies. Meanwhile, everyone else was still working. I didn't mind at this point - we were almost done. That was when we went to our next location - the public park.
There were already some other kids working there. Three boys were raking weeds and leaves out of the 10ft by 20ft sandbox. And that thing was FILLED with vines and dead grass.
Our group was going to be split into two - one to help clean the park, and one to help clean out a ba<x>sement. The guys from our group chose to help with the ba<x>sement, and I was going to go with them and my friends Zach and Evan. But I changed my mind - I stayed behind to help with the sandbox. All of the girls in our group stayed at the park too.
One of the boys working to clean out the sandbox is my friend Ben. He and the other guys had been working for about an hour, and there were several piles of weeds and grass that they had cleaned out next to the sandbox. I got garbage bags from a teacher and started filling them with the dead grass. While we worked, I talked with Ben about animations he's made. However, no matter how much the four of us talked, we never stopped working until the job was done.
The other girls were supposed to be raking up leaves. However, after a few minutes, the four of us noticed what they were actually doing... not much of anything. The ten of them were clustered together in front of the cell phone one of them was holding up. They were doing nothing but taking pictures - which is what they did for the next half hour!!!
After that half hour, the teacher noticed and escorted them to a new location.
For the next hour after that, the four of us finished cleaning the giant sandbox, AND raked up the leaves that the girls had left behind. There is a building in the park with a fridge and rows of tables inside. On one of my trips to the building to get more garbage bags, I thought I would bring back water bottles for us - the guys had been working in the sun for about 2 hours now. I thought I might find some in the fridge, but it was completely empty.
So went back to the sand pit with another black garbage bag - tied around my neck like a cape. I held the ends out and ran back to the group, yelling, "I'm Batman!". After that, we found the old motherboard of a phone buried in the sand. No one else wanted it, so I got to keep it.
Eventually, the leaves and dead grass were all bagged up and we took them up to the building, along with the rakes. Thankfully for us, there was a water fountain outside that I hadn't noticed before. It was just about time for lunch, - the rest of my old group was already there. Our friends Zach and Evan joined us at our table - they had gone to clean out the ba<x>sement. Apparently Evan had found a bunch of cool stuff that the owner had let him keep - a dartboard, an old radio, it sounded like they had a fun time there. As we waited for everyone else to get back for lunch, Ben showed us Flipnote animations he'd made on his DSi.
We all had about an hour and a half for lunch. After everyone had come back and eaten, there was still a good 30 minutes left. Nearly everyone went outside to play in the park. Ben and I stayed in the building, drawing and listening to music.
Then it was time to go to the next location. Our job was to clean up the leaves in a yard which... appeared to have no leaves in it. Aha, it was a trick! The dead leaves were actually em<x>bedded in flowerbeds and hidden behind thorny bushes, which I reached into with my bare hands. After a while, Ben and I went to work at the front of the yard, picking leaves out of a long flowerbed. It was filled with plants that are similar to Lamb's Ear plants - very soft to the touch, but shaped more like dandelion leaves. As we worked, we talked about the Thomas the Tank Engine series - the rocky transition from the original series to CG, James' annoying voice, and Ben told me about the diesel characters - who I don't know much about.
We also had a few unpleasant encounters with bugs - I found a spider in the flowerbed and a large maggot on one of the leaves.
Before we could finish cleaning out the leaves, it was already time to go to our final location. When we got there, most everyone got to work right away in different sections of the yard. Once again, our primary ob<x>jective was to clean up leaves. We joined a girl who was pulling leaves out of a large, untended flowerbed that ran the length of the house. Yes, ANOTHER flowerbed. And if we thought the last yard had bugs, this one had millions. As we pulled out leaves, we found anthills, roach-like bugs, pill bugs, an electrical cord, and... the first wasp.
Ben froze and said that there was a yellow-jacket right behind me. We got away from that area of the yard and went to work at clearing away leaves from between the boat and shed. Ben told me that he has a 50/50 chance of being deathly allergic to wasps and bees. However he does not have an epipen. We had only been by the boat for less than a minute when the wasp - or a new one - whizzed past us, flying over us and then behind the boat. Ben's whole demeanor changed, he seemed terrified. We walked toward the patio, looking for a safer place in the yard to work, when the wasp zoomed right over his head. I turned around to see him cowering in fear. That was when I knew we had to get out of there.
"Come on, we need to leave."
I led the way onto the patio, where the teacher was. There were also five kids there who were supposed to be working.
"We need to leave. Ben has a 50/50 chance of being deathly allergic to wasps and bees, and there are yellow jackets in this yard that keep following us. We need to go somewhere else."
The teacher said no - she didn't think the school would have let him on the field trip if he had the allergy.
I know that this is absolutely not true - my little brother is allergic to red dye, which makes him violently ill. The school does not know about it, but his allergy still exists.
A girl sitting on the patio doing nothing, agreed with the teacher. Except she was even less polite about the matter.
She restated what the teacher said in a snarkier fashion, then told him that if the school didn't know about it, then there was no possible way that he could be allergic - she said he was lying.
She completely invalidated the fear he was feeling, and the possibility that his life was in danger.
The teacher was nice enough to let us work in a wasp-less section of the yard. Ben walked across the patio, saying to me, "We need to get that rake." The girl made another snarky comment at Ben while she sat on her ass doing nothing.
We spent the next 20 minutes cleaning leaves out from under the deck. Unfortunately, the rake gave Ben splinters.
We saw that, once again, there were 10 kids hiding behind the side of the house doing absolutely nothing. Out of the 20 people there, only about 5 of us were working.
After that though, we were finally done.
On the bus back to school, Ben looked like he was about to pass out. He kept asking people if he looked okay - his eyes were glazed over and they could tell he was exhausted.
Back at school, we were required to have a discussion about "what we did today". Ben acknowledged the fact that too many people slacked off. I was worried that they would lash out at him - considering that included about half the people in the classroom. Thankfully, they didn't.
After that, Ben went to the nurse to get the splinters out of his hand, and I ran out of the classroom to have a complete breakdown in the girl's bathroom. I was so angry that most people were slacking off while Ben wasn't allowed to leave an area when his life was in danger.
Basically I cried uncontrollably and hit my head against the stall door repeatedly, I can still feel the bruise. A teacher came in after me and I told her how angry I was at that girl for saying those things to Ben.
When I went back into the classroom, it was empty except for the two teachers, Ben, and me. We both have anxiety disorders - he has Generalized and I have Social. He called what I had an anxiety attack, but I'm not sure.
We kind of laughed it off, then we stood in the hallway with some teachers while everyone else had an assembelly in the gym. We whispered a bit about how the speaker was being a bit rude. When a teacher told him to be quiet, I started crying uncontrollably again because I was so angry that someone was mad at him again.
He hugged me until I stopped crying, and then we stood there for another ten minutes until school was over.
He said it's a good thing that we're friends.
I'm not so sure. I feel like I'll destroy everything I touch, including him.
I wanted to protect him so badly that it backfired and all I could do was cry, and then he had to help ME.
Tomorrow is Monday. If those kids in math class start mimicking him again, I will personally kick their asses.
26-30, F