Your math teacher hands you back the quiz from the other day that you thought you had aced. You were right.  A red A+ glowed on the paper and so did the note with it that said, “Great work!” You walk out the classroom with your head up high feeling great about yourself. Then, you walk to English class with your friends all talking about each other's grades on the math quiz. The little-miss-goody-two-shoes in your class begins laughing and cheering about how much she loved the new assignment to write  the critical essay and how she had so many ideas, she just didn’t know which one to choose. At the end of class you get your critical essay back covered in revisions. You realized the teacher’s edits were longer than your essay. You can’t stop thinking about how much you have to rewrite, and then you completely blank out and wonder to yourself what are you doing?. You hated the book and could barely get through one chapter, nevermind writing an essay on it.

During lunch, while devouring chicken fingers and fries since you forgot to eat breakfast as usual, your friends start talking about how much homework they have. You bring up your critical essay and how you have so many revisions you don’t know how you’re going to finish in time with the rest of the workload you have to do. After school, on the bus ride to soccer, all you can think about is the essay, wondering how you’re going to complete it in time, and wondering whether you’re going to end up procrastinating again.

When you get home you quickly scarf down a bowl of spaghetti and meatballs and then sprint up the stairs trying to explain to your parents that you have so much work to do and so little time. Then you sit on your bed and finally start typing. You begin with your name and the date, just to get something on paper. You wonder if you can come up with more ideas if you type in blue or green font instead of black. You try out several colors. No, you probably have to use black. You decide to use the largest font you can find, something like “merriweather.” You type in merriweather font. Oh yes that’s good! You use 12-point font, just to stretch onto the next page. Oh and don’t forgot to double space. That will already turn a few sentences into half a page. You then  skim the book, trying to read almost 400 pages in less than an hour. But after one page your brain dies, and you start checking your Instagram feed.

After googling enough to understand a sense of the book, you read the given prompt 5 or 6 times just to get your brain working. You start thinking of ideas; you ask your friends in group chats to help you while complaining about how many assignments you have and how it’s so unfair. Your mind’s stuck in trying to think of something to write about. It’s already 6pm, and your mom’s screaming from downstairs, telling you it’s time for dinner. You respond at the top of your lungs, “5 minutes!” Five minutes pass, and your mom brings your dinner upstairs. You quickly eat while running back and forth to get utensils and water.  Soon it’s already 8pm. You have other homework to do, but you need to get the essay done no matter what it takes. You procrastinate more, listening to Taylor Swift’s new album while munching on an almost empty bag of Doritos. You check your imessages, Snapchat, Instagram, and email until you realize it’s almost 10. You sprint to the bathroom, turn on the shower and procrastinate even more in the shower, singing out loud while your sister pounds on the door, telling you to be quiet because she’s trying to study.

It’s 10pm and you still have a paper to write. Like a bad cough, it just won’t go away. Just type anything. It doesn’t even have to be relevant, just get it down on the paper. You become even more tired and try your best to not close your eyes. You begin to panic realizing that you’re screwed. You come up with many different ideas to provide a reasonable excuse for your teacher about why your paper isn’t finished. You could say your power went out and that you couldn’t use your computer for the entire night, or maybe say that you accidentally left your computer at school. Your best friend is trying to facetime you to chit chat about the new Netflix show, Keeping Up With the Kardashians and how she can’t stop watching it. You text her that you're busy trying to finish a last minute paper. She says, “It will only take a second just pick up.” You pick up the phone and start gossiping about the Kardashians and who’s pregnant. Soon you realize you’ve been on the phone for about an hour and now it’s almost midnight. After a while you have a good sense of what you’re going to write about.... and that’s... nothing. You take a quick bathroom break and run downstairs to grab a pack of oreos. Soon you fall asleep with nothing except for your name, the date and a few sentences.

You wake up around 2AM after having had a nightmare that you had an essay due tomorrow that you hadn’t even started. Oh wait, that nightmare is actually a reality, and, as a matter of fact, you have to finish more than half of an essay in just a few hours. You dive to your desk, still half asleep, shuffling papers as if  the secret to what to write about is contained somewhere in there. Finally, you think of a decent enough topic. You start typing and keep typing until your mom tells you to wake up. You tell her that you’ve been up already for a few hours now. She frowns and tells you to hurry up and get ready before you’re late. You quickly scramble out of your pajamas and throw on a pair of grey sweatpants. Then you rush to the bathroom trying to wash your face, brush your teeth and comb your hair before your mom starts honking at you.

As soon as you get to school you rush into the building, vanishing past all your friends who are wondering why you’re in such a hurry. You sit in the library, open  your computer, only to see a black screen with a battery that says zero percent. “NO!!!” you yell, forgetting you are in the library. You realize that you forgot to charge your laptop overnight and that the entire battery is drained. Running to the computer lab to ask for a charger, you hear the ring of the bells emphasizing that  you’re about to be late to class. First period and, of course, you have English. During the entire class, you space out, trying to come up with the best excuse to hide the fact that you failed to complete your homework, which just happens also to be one of the major essays of the year. After class, the teacher asks everyone to hand in hard copies of their critical essays. You’re  the last one left in the classroom. Empty handed, you explain that your “printer is having technical difficulties.” The teacher kindly says to hand it in by the end of the day.

You sprint to the computer lab to ask  for a spare charger. The technician hands you the charger and strictly demands you to give it back by the end of the day. You race to your next class. When you open the door,  the entire class turns to stare at you. The teacher, with a dark, stern look on his face, asks you why you’re late. You lie (again) and say that you had to use the bathroom. You try to finish the essay using every spare moment you have:  art class, lunch, and your only free period. By 3PM you have a completed essay on your computer. Although it barely shows a basic understanding of the reading, and although it proves that you have no knowledge of the story whatsoever, you proudly hand in your critical essay to your teacher. Even though the teacher gives you that look, the one one that you’ve gotten before, the one where she  reveals that she knows you have messed up and that her grade is going to reflect it, you finally sigh in relief that it’s all over. At least for now. You tell yourself you are never, never going to procrastinate again. But you might just have to put off tonight’s homework since you are so tired that you can barely keep your eyes open.