Elouise
I jolt into consciousness,my phone alarm blaring two inches from my ear.
Blindly, I reach up to turn off the awful noise, but my arm halts, hitting a barrier.
My body flips into panic mode, the trapped feeling suddenly overwhelming. But flailing only serves to make me feel more enclosed. My brain takes way too long to remember that I’m cocooned in a too small sleeping bag.
The material twists and tightens around me as I try to roll over, and the little reason I have left flees.
Oh my god! Get me out of this cotton coffin!
My phone alarm is getting louder.
Make it stop!
The closest tent is more than twenty feet away, but I don’t want to be the asshole that wakes up a bunch of kids earlier than necessary on what’s supposed to be a fun Spring Break trip.
Biting back a curse, I roll onto my back and try to force myself to calm down.
Wishing I’d stuck with those damn ab workout videos I promised myself I’d do, I use every scrap of core strength that I have, I sit up.
The sleeping bag sits up with me, and the sound of the alarm becomes muffled as the phone slips down the makeshift slide I just created.
“Seriously?!”
Pulling the top edge of the sleeping bag away from my chest, I look down to see a dull glow coming from somewhere near my knees.
I can’t reach it.
I bend my knees – hoping to make the phone slide back towards my butt – just to feel the phone thud against my feet, in the Very Fucking Bottom of the sleeping bag.
It’s like I can feel my blood pressure rising. A combination of rage, annoyance, and sleepiness bubbling in my veins.
I take a slow breath to calm down.
The phone volume ticks up a notch, and it takes every ounce of my control to keep from screaming.
Slowly, I reach for the zipper on my claustrophobic, 25-year-old sleeping bag.
Keeping my calm, I drag it down.
I will not let this day defeat me before 7am.
The zipper jams.
If this were a cartoon, my face would turn bright red and clouds of steam would be whistling from my ears.
I take another slow breath.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
I jiggle the zipper.
Nothing.
I try pulling it back up.
Nothing.