By Michael
I start my day when my Alexa alarm sets off, one alarm for 6.50 and one for 6.55 am. My granny on my mom’s side had gotten it for me at Christmas and has been a big help as my watch alarm never woke me up. I get out of bed at about 7 and go down stairs and make my lunch which almost always consists of a ham sandwich, an apple and rice cakes. My mom is usually downstairs by the time I’m finished making my lunch. The reason that’s she is down relatively late for someone who works is that right now she works from home and doesn’t start as early as usual. She works in the matter hospital and shows college students stuff like surgery and just general stuff about whatever it is they want to be. Anyway after I’ve made my lunch and filled up my water bottle I put it in my bag and get onto breakfast, the thing that I have for breakfast never changes, it’s always been three Weetabix and some milk. Before Weetabix my dad made my sister and I porridge on weekdays and we had cheerio’s on weekends. Usually after my breakfast I have a bit of spare time and might what YouTube for the remaining time until I leave. I leave my house at about 8 but it’s usually 8.05 because I play with my cat Missy, I have another cat called Sid but he is always either asleep or outside the front or the back. I live in a place called Courtland’s down Griffith avenue, I cycle down Griffith on the wide path, if I’m unlucky I will get told by some random person to get on the cycle lane and stay off the path, even though I was as far away as everyone else is from them and am doing no harm, on the other hand if I’m lucky no one will tell me to get on the cycle lane and all the lights will go green when I get to them. Cycle down and stop when I get to the entrance of char Lemont, I cross over and go down Philipsburg, I usually stop at C&T and get a 15c drumstick. When I get out of C&T I head further down until down the long short path. Something I noticed recently is that there has always been a group of about 20 children and roughly 5 adults all wearing hi vis vests and sticking to the left side of the road like they’re supposed to. I have started to assume that it has something to do with the school beside the spar that I’m headed towards, it might be a school sports thing that they might do once a year as a bit of a sports day or maybe similar. I meet my friends (Paddy Edy Senan Simone) at the lights closest to the spar and start on our way to school with haste.
“This story earns its alliterative title with a series of charming, telling details, from the writer’s mother’s later rising time due to the COVID 19 pandemic to the foods the writer habitually includes in lunches and breakfasts, and the names of the writer’s cats. The story conveys carefully-calibrated school mornings in which five minutes of play with the writer’s cat are made up for by riding on the wide path on Griffith Avenue, hoping no “random person” will shoo the writer onto the cycle lane.”
— Prof. Margot Backus, University of Houston, USA