The day is Friday. The time is 7:40 a.m. Like most people, you’d like to spend your Friday mornings sleeping in and nursing the severe hangover given to you by several tequila shots the night prior. But you’re an idiot. An idiot who scheduled an 8 a.m. class on a Friday. You slowly open your bloodshot eyes and try to focus on something other than the fact your clothes smell like a bar floor. You roll out of bed and slump to the fridge, hoping something in there will quell the war raging in your stomach.
You unlock your phone and go straight to the weather app, praying it’s at least 30 degrees. In your groggy, half-asleep state, you see a “1” and an “8,” and a small part of you hopes that maybe the earth is plummeting into the sun and that maybe, at least for a few seconds, it will really be 81 degrees. But you know deep down in your heart that it is 18 degrees and snowing. You open your closet and pile on no less than three layers of clothing.
You, being the ever-vigilant hero in this story, head outside to brave the elements, and also to drag your equally hungover friend to class. You have to be strong for the both of you. You can do this. You can make it to class.
The wind. Oh god, the wind. It slashes at your face like a sharpened claw. The icy tendrils rip at your skin. You swear you can feel the blood dripping down your face, but that couldn’t possibly be happening, as you’re pretty sure your blood is frozen anyway.
“How could anyone survive this?” you ask. “Why does it feel like Mother Nature is trying to fight me?” Each gust threatens to knock you over, but still, you prevail. Maybe if you move as little as possible it will leave you alone.
As you’re trudging through the snow, you think to yourself, “I can’t do this. This is too much. My socks are soaking wet. My hands are hurting they’re so cold.” You feel like you haven’t seen any signs of life in years, but you can see your building in the distance. You’re so close.
There are only a few feet left until you reach your destination. You’ve lost almost all feeling in your body. You’ve lost all sanity. All you want to do is curl up in a nice warm bed/dead horse.
You’ve made it. You’ve finally made it. You reach out to the door handle, but something is off. Where are all your classmates? You whip out your phone and check your email. There, with the tiny “unread” icon next to it, is the subject line reading, “Class Cancelled.”
“This can’t be happening,” you say out loud to yourself. “This can’t be real.” Furious, you open the email.
“Hi class, I think it is just way too cold to have class today, so take a day off! Remember to read chapter four and do the online assignment :)”
A small piece of you hopes your professor has the same fate as John Fitzgerald.
Then you realize that you and Leonardo DiCaprio are very similar. You both struggled against the elements while only uttering grunts of pain for two hours. And much like Leonardo DiCaprio, you aren't getting an Oscar for it either.
