Northampton highschool, having a great academic team, recently went to As Schools Match Wits, the show where schools match wits. My older brother happens to be on the team and is incredibly good at answering the questions given.
So my family and I all went to the studio, or at least that was the initial plan. But as my family pulled up to my school, I reached for a traffic light button to cross across to them. As I pulled away from the button, I realized that what I had thought to be a static shock to the finger had a bug sticking out of it.
A bee.
I wanted to scream, but I couldn't. I could feel the poison entering my body as I squeezed my pinky. Without thinking, I crossed the street, not checking to see if the light was green, or even if I was going the right way. In the end, my older brother came across and picked me up, but by that time my hand was numb.
We were running a little late. My older brother tried to call his friend on the team, but she wasn't answering.
Eventually, when my mother saw that I was clutching my hurt hand in the other, she decided to call my uncle, who was also coming, and tell him to bring some baking soda.
At this point, my older brother had to get dressed, and he realized that he didn't know how to put a tie on. As my mother frantically read the instructions off of MapQuest and wished that we had a GPS, my little brother tried to work out how to make the knot. I reflected on all of those times I had ignored it when Google offered me the instructions and cursed my past self.
A few years back, my father taught me to tie a tie, but I only remembered one step. I took the tie from my little brother, closed my eyes, (No exaggerations--maybe I just knew that I'd be writing about it later.) and carefully twisted. I was almost there--I opened my eyes again--and looked at the knot. It was lopsided, with one loose "string" hanging off to the side. I pondered for a moment and then stuck the loose bit through the tie part. (If you've ever tied a tie, you know what I mean.)
I handed the tie back to my brother and winced as I squeezed my pinky shut.
Suddenly my older brother's phone rang! We all listened for a second, and then he grabbed it and started talking.
"Is that you?" he paused. "Yes! We'll be running a little late. What are you all doing now?"
I heard his friend respond with "Waiting for you guys."
"Ah. Yes, of course." He sighed. "Okay, well we're almost there. Can you guys just tell the people with the TV show that we're almost there?"
"Ten minutes away," my mother said.
"We're ten minutes away!" He paused. "Mhmm... okay... alright, see you then!"
We kept on driving, and that is where the drama ends. We met with the producer, a friendly man named... Rob, I think...
I can't reveal who won, (Even though this blog is completely unread) but I can say that Northampton did their best, and that they either won or lost with honor. The episode airs APRIL 28TH, 2010 AT 7:30
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