Just Kidding, But Seriously...

Climb That Banana Tree

"So, a janitor's closet, huh?"

"I was desperate!" I cried, my insistence fueled by the judgment brewing in Raymond's eyes. "You'd be too, if you were being chased by a bunch of psycho tree huggers who looked like they were thinking of different ways to murder you."

We were currently at work-Greasy Joe's. Thirty minutes ago, I had gotten out of the most traumatic experience of my life. The (manly) tears swimming in my eyes the entire time acted as proof of it.

In the end, I spent a total of four hours in that god-forsaken room. Apparently the lock had been having issues for a while, and not even a key could get it to unlock. That was why it was always kept half-open.

But-what the hell? When you're running for your life, is that the first thing that's going to come to your mind when you see a method of escape? Are you going to look at your salvation and think, hmm, I better make sure the lock is functioning properly before something crazy happens and I get locked in there or something. No, you aren't.

I blamed the janitor for all of this: Mr. Phillips.

The good looking firemen who came to my rescue (I was clearly a damsel in distress) blamed the school.

And the school blamed me.

No charges were pressed in the form of ugly detention slips, although my parents were informed via phone call. The best part was that the only time my parents tended to actually be involved in my life was when I did something bad, so I was in for a treat when I got home.

And no, I am not talking about treats as in baked cookies and candy.

Hence the reason why I decided to go to work overtime on a weekday even though my shifts were only on weekends. I told myself that I wanted to earn extra money to buy some contact lenses, even though the real reason was.... what was it we teenagers called it? Ah, yes. Procrastination.

Procrastinating a total beat down at the hands of my parents.

Anyway, in the end I came out of that closet a changed man. I realized that open spaces were completely unappreciated and had to greatly suppress the urge to dance around in a field of lilies the moment I stepped out of that hell hole. I learned that Mr. Phillips keeps voice recordings of himself singing the blues underneath the wet floor sign behind the dirty mop, and that my farts smell even worse in confined spaces than out in the open. And believe me when I say that those open-spaced ones are pretty darn bad.

But I was a survivor. No putrid smell or livid parent could take that away from me.

Everyone at school already knew about my little ordeal, thanks to the power of cheap cell phone cameras and social networking. It was an added bonus in terms of my popularity (Luke later told me that an image of me appearing to be hysterically talking to the roof from inside the closet was trending on Twitter), but the fact that Gwen had seen me ultimately made my additional fame worthless.

Getting into a humiliating situation in front of a girl you liked was not something I'd recommend to anyone, unless you wanted to ruin your chances with her forever.

Raymond half-laughed, half-scoffed at my defensive words. I dug my hand into my pocket before handing him the lovely-worded letter that the green thumbs had left taped to the janitor's closet window.

"They left me that while I was inside the closet contemplating suicide," I explained. "Should I be worried? I think I should be worried."

Raymond skimmed his eyes over the crumpled paper before widening them.

"Shit," he cussed. "They've got it out for you."

I nodded, my body shuddering with the heeby-jeebies as I remembered the way their fierce faces and tightly-flexing muscles looked when I peered over my shoulder. They were hungry lions-no, not lions, cheetahs-who were on the hunt for gazelles. More specifically, the Derek-flavored gazelle.