It was Tuesday and I was asleep.  The alarm clock shouted like a marching band that the time was now six a.m., and I should bounce out of bed, bright eyed and bushy tailed.  As if still dreaming, I could see my hand fly out from under the covers and supernaturally land on the snooze button.  I vowed to relocate the clock across the room for the next morning.  I smirked to myself thinking, “sure, that’ll work.  It’ll be like “Night of the Living Dead” lurking across the room to hit the snooze button.”  However, after playing the snooze for ten minutes, I willed myself out bed and stumbled in the general direction of the bathroom. 

            Making my way down the hall I could hear my mother shouting upstairs that if I didn’t get my butt out of bed now, I’ll be riding the bus for the rest of my life.  “Rest of my life, huh?” I thought to myself.  I learned very quickly at a young age that Mom had vampire ears and could hear any kind of back talk even if I was across the county, whispering in a cave.  So, keeping my two cents under wraps, I prepared myself for the day. 

            My sister, Leanna, is seven years my junior and was an unimaginable brat.  It was her fault that all my books had orange crayon gibberish scribbled from first to last page, and that the door to my room was padlocked when I was not there.  As usual we fought for the bathroom that morning until, miraculously, we both raced down the stairs, dressed, brushed and thoroughly agitated with each other.  “You’re going to fail”, she stated in her nine-year-old-going-on-twenty voice.  “Shut up”, was all I could muster; my nerves were gaining control of my stomach and breakfast was not going to be an option.  Dad and I left in the 1979 econo-line van (with glass packs) and made our way to town.

            “Left blinker, right blinker.”