A Smothering Experience

A Smothering Experience

In eighth grade, our class trip was to New York City. Naturally, we had to share hotel rooms. I signed up with my friends Jotham, Zac, and RJ. Now, if you know them, you can imagine that I was in for a long two nights.

We had just gotten back from seeing Phantom of the Opera. It was about 10:00 p.m. I figured we were going to go to bed because we had gotten up early, had taken the long bus ride, plus it was already late. Boy, was I wrong.

“Good night, guys!” I said.
“Um, Ryan, we’re not going to bed. We’re gonna play cards!” said Jotham.
“That’s nice… good night!” I said, exhausted.

They then decided not only to play cards, but also to brew coffee to keep them up. For whatever reason, neither Jotham nor Zac knew how to use the coffee pot; RJ had to instruct them. And Jotham brought nutmeg that he wanted to use. Let me back up. There were only two beds; I was definitely not sharing. What’d I do? Well, I paid them to have one of the beds. You may think it sounds ridiculous, but I was very adamant at the time.

“Well, obviously I’m not going to get any sleep!” I said.

They were playing at the coffee table in front of RJ’s makeshift bed, the couch.

“Who wants to deal?” bellowed Zac.

I reminded him it was nearing midnight, and that most normal people were sleeping, or at least wanted to sleep.

All of a sudden we heard a thump outside of our door. Because we were taped in (yes, the teachers taped the doors so we wouldn’t get out), we looked through the peephole in the door. It was a security guard. He sat outside of our door!

“We could take him,” Jotham said under his breath.

We decided to tone the noise down, especially since teachers were in the next room over. They still continued to play cards and drink coffee. I didn’t. I tried to get some sleep, but that clearly wasn’t going to happen.

“Someone just smother me,” I said to no one in particular.

“Okay,” replied Jotham.

And so he attempted to. Granted, I didn’t really think he would, but he did try to. That’s Jotham for you.

“Okay, okay, enough! I was just joking!” I said, half-laughing, half trying to get up.

“You said you wanted to be smothered.”

“I didn’t really think you’d do it!”

“When someone wants or asks to be smothered, I’ll do it!”

Zac and RJ were quite amused. Well, that’s an understatement; they were laughing their heads off and wondering why I was surprised Jotham did it.

“Did you really think Jotham wouldn’t do it, Ryan?” RJ said.

“I said it sarcastically!”

Finally, about 2:00 p.m., they decided to call it quits. I was extremely happy that I would, hopefully, be able to get to sleep. Of course, with my luck, that didn’t happen; I couldn’t fall asleep. And so, that 7:00 a.m. wake-up call came far too early.