Johnny Rabbit was in his last days of ninth grade, zoning off was something that seemed to happen quite a bit. Johnny’s English teacher had just finished explaining what was expected to be included in their final essay of the year.

“It will be worth 15 percent of your semester grade, so make sure you get it done and do not procrastinate!”, Ms. Puff, the puffer fish, exclaimed to her boisterous students.

“Fifteen percent?”, Johnny garbled under his breath.

Before Johnny could even ask Birdie, Johnny’s seat buddy, what they were supposed to write their five paragraph essay on, the bell rang. Johnny anxiously marched to his favorite class of the day, lunch.

After a whole day of dazing out, Johnny got off the bus, scurried inside, and immediately got out a clean sheet of white paper to start his essay.

“I’m going to get this done right away!”, he encouraged himself.

Ten minutes had passed, and all Johnny had done was get up to get a drink of orange juice.

“Okay. All I have to do is start with my name, and then it will come to me.” As he reached his hand, holding his pencil, up to the top right corner of the paper, he stopped. He could not go on like this. “Everyone knows you can’t start an essay without sharpening your pencil! Duh!” He then got up to go sharpen his pencil.

Johnny sat back down to finally start his essay. Right as he started the J in his name, the phone rang.

“Hello?”, asked Johnny.

“Yo J-Dawg! What’s up?” It was his best friend Snoopy Dog.

“Oh hey Snoopy! Nothin’ much. I’m just trying to get through this essay Ms. Puff gave us. What about you?”

“Dude I just got invited to go play Ultimate Frisbee with the Terrier Triplets! They asked if you wanted to come too!”

“Well I really should finish--,” Johnny tried to explain before Snoopy rudely interrupted.

“They asked for you! ‘Johnny Rabbit’ were their exact words.”

“Okay okay…only for 15 minutes though!

Well, 15 minutes turned into about an hour and 15 minutes. Right as Johnny found out what time it was, he sprinted home. He looked at the kitchen clock, “6:03,” he read aloud. He went back to the kitchen table to finally start on his essay. This time he got his name on the paper before his mother called him into the dining room for dinner, family night, and scripture study.

Almost a whole two hours later his mom told him he can now go and finish up any homework he has left. Johnny knew he had more than he could do in one night! Tapping his pencil on the burgundy table top, he struggled to think of a thesis statement. His mind was blank.

“The Office is on!”, shouted Millie, Johnny’s younger sister. The Office was the one television show that their whole family enjoyed together.

“Maybe after this show I’ll have some ideas. It’s only a half-hour show,” Johnny convinced himself.

The family sat, watched, and laughed hysterically. This was probably the funniest episode of The Office out of all five seasons! Johnny was very grateful he didn’t miss it.

Johnny, once again, sat down to finish—or start his essay. Yet again, he got distracted. Some of his friends from school had put up new pictures from last week’s Spring Fling Dance on Facebook. He had to get on and check them out! And one more time did a couple of minutes turn into a couple of hours.

By now it was nearly 10:30 and Johnny was asleep, still at the kitchen table.

The next morning, Johnny jumped up and realized he had fallen asleep. Getting up to check the time, he was hoping that he had not slept in. “7:45”, he said to himself. He had missed the bus by a good 15 minutes.

After getting a ride from his neighbor, Johnny was just in time for English. It was then when he remembered the essay.

As Ms. Puff came around to pick up everybody’s essays, Johnny tried to think of an excuse.

“My dog ate it! No… My grandma died? No… He gave up. It was no use. The only reason for not having his essay done was procrastination.

“Your essay Johnny?”, asked Ms. Puff.

“No, I don’t have it.”

“Okay, well that means you get a zero.”

Johnny twitched at the word. This was his first real zero. It could not be good for his grade; or his future social life.

Johnny learned at that moment that procrastination always dominated and he promised himself he would never let it happen again!