The sunlight brightens my bedroom more than it should.

My first clue that more than one thing would go wrong today.

Peeping one groggy eye open, I fumble around for my phone to tell me the time, to let me know how much time I have left to get ready for work. Odd. Where my phone usually is, is not where it is actually at—my second clue that a bad omen was lurking somewhere. Instead, I find it precariously perched upon a shelf, wedged between too many books I have yet to read. And it’s not on the charger—my third and final clue.

I turn it over.

12:27 p.m.

I’m exactly 57 minutes late to work. Exactly 57 minutes late from where I’m actually supposed to be.

I’d like to say that I handled this with grace, that I was totally calm and collected in the face of what I feared most: a write-up. Or worse, to get fired once I arrived. After all, it is only a summer job and I only have one more week left before I have to leave and return to college. I’d like to say that I did everything that I did getting to work with elegance.

But if you know me well, you know that nothing I pull off is done with even an ounce of elegance.

It’s more like a I’m a bad Disney Channel sitcom character who throws on haphazard costumes to rewrite the wrongs I’m desperately trying to right before it explodes in my face.

Or like some spontaneous brute gambling through obstacles and consequently increasing the ruin.

Anyways, the scream that emitted from my mouth when I saw the time, when I noticed I was almost a whole hour late to work, roused my dog from her slumber, putting her in a state of panic as she raced to my room. Seeing me frantically searching in my dresser for my uniform—it’s a swimsuit, I’m a lifeguard, it’s not weird—while throwing entire drawers onto the bed once I’d already looked through them probably brought a laugh or two to Hurricane if she could actually muster one. Once all my underwear was hanging on my bookcase and my shirts were sprawled on my bed and my socks were piled on my desk, did I abandon the hope of finding a clean uniform.

But there was still that used one somewhere in here.

I plunged my hand into the hamper and protruded the uniform I wore the day before. It may have been dirty, but I knew that I would be taking a swim in the chlorinated pool later that day anyways, so it was not that much of a bother.

Once I quickly prepared my cooler with the necessary amount of waters that I would need, and found the left Chaco sandal under that mountain of shorts I created in the hallway, I grabbed my fanny pack—a necessary item needed for lifeguarding—and thundered through the front door, banging it against the brick alcove. I whipped around, turned the key in the lock, and ran like hell to my car.

I barely gave my car enough time to start before I put it in drive and sped away.

Now, I tell myself to not speed, but when my driver’s foot suddenly becomes a weight upon the pedal, I throw all caution to the wind as I become my own criminal in my own game of highway speed chase. And my eyes, weirdly enough, turn into a better police scanner than the ones my friends all have in their cars.

Suddenly, my mind finds it acceptable to go forty over the registered speed limit: 50 mph. It’s the service road, so it’s pretty much the highway already, right? I’m almost positive that I used this same line of thinking before being handed a $250 ticket almost nine months ago, but this is for work, so it’s actually for a noble reason. Surely, the police officer will understand, too.

“I always thought I would sink, so I never swam!”

At some point in my stark concentration on getting to work before more time elapsed before my doom, I must have turned on the radio. And found myself singing—more like caterwauling if we’re being honest with our ourselves—along to the music as well. Because what’s really a crisis without a summer melody to juxtapose the tension. Especially if it’s a little Miley Cyrus.

Well, I’m almost definitely going to sink when I walk through the front doors of the Frisco Athletic Center and fail to slink past the glaring eyes of my bosses, the accusing stares of my coworkers, and the sympathetic gazes of my friends.

And in almost no time at all, I’ve parked, I’ve turned off the car—Miley included, unfortunately, I’ve scrambled out, and I’ve run into the building. Gasping for air while clocking in, I survey my surroundings to make sure that I’m spared of the enemy eyes before I ultimately have to face them.

No one.

The coast is clear for the time being.

When you walk into the indoor pool area of the Frisco Athletic Center, you have to pass the manager’s office first, so if you’re late to work, you’re going to be skewered before you can even beg for mercy. And from what I’ve seen of the fates of my fellow coworkers, mercy is not a long leash, but rather a light puff of wind.

They have a wall of windows that look out on the pool deck so they see everything.

There is no avoiding them.

I steel some confidence into myself.This is my fourth summer dammit.And I shoulder through the doors, walking straight into the jaws of the literal shark. Before I can be eaten for my oversleeping, I knock on the manager’s door and push my way in to come face to face with Jenette. Superintendent of Aquatics. Intimidating gray-blue eyes that literally bore into your soul seeking for your secrets. Before I allow her to inflict her fangs upon me I say, “I’M REALLY SORRY I’M LATE! I OVERSLEPT BECAUSE I WAS UP LATE LAST NIGHT FINISHING UP A PROJECT FOR SCHOOL!”

No claws are being unsheathed. No fangs are elongating. And I have not been vaporized yet, either. All I get is, “Thank you for letting me know,” and a smile.

Hmm.

Weird.

I muster a simple, “Thank you,” and awkwardly skirt out of the doorway and make my way outside towards my now six-hour shift as fast as I can.

Was that it? Was that what I feared?I’ve never been late to work before, not in my four summers here ever. I always imagined the worst if I ever was, too. But that was it. You see, I do not like being late to anything because it was my mom who drilled it into me to believe that if you are late you are lazy, you do not care, and you are what others will look down upon. And I’ve usually been guilty of thinking one of these three things almost every time someone else is late to an event we all had to attend at a certain time.

That was it?

It’s still always better to be early than it is to be late or on-time. I know that. Jamie Glover doesn't have to worry about the doctrine she broke into her child being eradicated by one bad-morning-turned-not-too-bad-of-an-outcome day.

But that was seriously, honestlyit?

So much for my big debut on Cops.