The Icy Disaster

One winter morning in my senior year of high school, I was in a rush to get to school. I dashed down the stairs to the front door. I ran into my little sister, Zahra, and my mother at the bottom of the stairs. Once I finished lacing up my shoes, I grabbed my bag off the floor and opened the front door. As I went to close the door, my mother stopped me.

"Be careful Leylah, it looks icy." she said as she glanced at the street in front of me.

"Yeah, okay," I replied, secretly agitated that she had slowed me down. I stepped out of the front door, and she continued to watch me as I hurried down the walkway.

As I approached the end of the walkway where it meets the driveway, I slipped. Suddenly I was on my back and lying on the ground! I hit my head against the blacktop and began to slide the driveway and approach the sidewalk. As I regained my balance, all I could hear was the loud convulsive laughter of my mother and sister.

"Was that funny?" I asked clearly, unamused. My mother and sister were bent over laughing, grasping their knees for support. I stood at the end of the driveway staring at them intently.

"If looks could kill we would both be dead!" my mother blurted out in the middle of a chuckle. She nudged my sister. My sister was lying on the floor, rolling back and forth, wholly consumed in laughter.

After a few minutes went by, I noticed I was feeling dizzy. I slowly trudged back up the slippery driveway and toward the front door. As I got closer, my vision began to go blurry. My mother noticed something was wrong, so she grabbed me and walked me inside. I sat on the couch and slowly drifted off to sleep. When I awoke, I looked around in confusion. I could hear my mother chuckling. The small chuckles grew to a loud and excessive laugh. I followed the laughter into the kitchen, where my mom was sitting at the table staring at her phone. I approached her slowly.

"What's so funny?" I asked hesitantly. She looked at me with a grin and showed her phone to me.

It was a security video. I reluctantly pressed play as the video proceeded realization set in. My jaw dropped open, and my hand flew to my face. It was a video of me falling!

"You caught this on video?" I blurted out. She nodded in amusement.

I stayed home from school that day and spent the day contemplating how I would delete the evidence. However, luck was not on my side. Later in the day, around 3 pm, when my sister returned from school, she walked in with her friend, Brooklyn. Before they even had both feet in the door, my sister called out to me.

"Leylah! Do you want to show Brooklyn anything?" she said sarcastically with a grin on her face. Brooklyn looked at me in confusion.

I gave my sister a nasty look and rolled my eyes as I walked into the kitchen. Brooklyn and Zahra entered the kitchen and approached my mother. My mother bent down, and my sister whispered in her ear. My mother reached in her back pocket and pulled out her phone. I knew exactly where this was going, and I seized my moment. I rushed over to my mother, grabbed her phone, and deleted the video. She looked at me in disbelief.

"Why would you do that?" she belted out as her face grew red with anger.

"I have had enough embarrassment for today," I stated calmly and with satisfaction.

After that day, I realized that sometimes it's better to slow down. Life can be chaotic and stressful. It can often feel as if you are on autopilot and have no time to catch your breath. However, at times you need to remind yourself to relax. If you don't, the consequences can be less than desirable.