I took the day off of school today. To any normal senior in high school this would be no big deal, everybody takes days off when they need a break. I on the other hand am not a normal teenager. I have only taken 2 real days off in my entire high school career, both within the past 3 months. It all started my freshman year of high school when I would get “awards” in the mail for getting perfect attendance. These awards were actually $1 coupons to the school store. Even though I received many of these coupons I never spent ONE and I am still not sure why.

I was going to set a goal for myself, to graduate with perfect attendance. It seemed like a great idea at the time. I needed some motivation to go to school and I figured it was something I could achieve. It was much easier than you would think. I think it helped my grades immensely. Two years I received my perfect attendance award at the end of the year. The second year I didn’t at first because of a slip up in the attendance records, but I made sure it was corrected. Then my third year of high school no perfect attendance awards were handed out. I figured it would be on record and that when I graduated I would certainly be recognized for having to get up everyday and go to a school that has a horrible math and science department.

The beginning of my senior year I decided to make sure everything was set in stone, so I went to the always reliable, never messes up schedules, there-when-you-need-them counselor’s office. This is when I was told that they stopped handing out awards my junior year because they were too busy, ya know, spending their money monogramming the soap dispensers and putting in cameras to see who was drawing penis’ on the dry wall. Words cannot express how utterly PISSED I was.

Two weeks later I did the unthinkable and took a day off of school. On that day, just like today, I felt incredibly guilty and anxious. At the same time I am shocked. Did you know that during school hours there is sunshine? And to top it all off, the sky is blue! Squirrels jump from branch to branch and birds chirp. I am a changed person. A person who has taken 2 days off of school and is not looking back.