My 24 Hour Fast

Just to warn you before you read this blog entry... I have a lot to talk about so I am going to get carried away on random subjects that come to mind as I write. If you were to grade me on organization I would fail.
It all started on Thursday at 6pm after dinner. My family and I were all getting ready to have a family 24 hour fast together. Sarah had peanut butter and jelly toast, my mom and dad had spaghetti, and I had a yummy sandwich and two carrot sticks. Before I go on with the story you have to know just how important my sandwiches are to me. I have specific bread, and I do everything from right to left. In order to have cheese in every bit I have to have my cheese cut and set in a perfect square. You laugh now, but just wait till we have a picnic together and I'm the one with the good lookin' sandwich.
After I ate my last meal I began my fast. Sarah and I went to hang out with our friend, which wasn’t a good idea. We went to Jackson Elementary School and hit some balls…well we attempted. Sarah and I hadn’t swung a bat in a while so we looked like we belonged on a T-Ball team. But even when we used to play T-Ball we could never hit the ball off the T. That explains why we never made it off the bench.
Sarah and I enjoyed playing field…there were flowers to pick. After we had our ‘fun’ playing baseball, our friends decided to buy a pizza. It just happened to be my favorite kind of pizza too, Little Caesars. At that point I was craving water and pizza. It was late so Sarah and I went home. Once about 11pm came around I was dieing for a drink of water, but I restrained myself and I continued my fast. Throughout the night I pictured myself being able to drink the cold refreshing water from my new, red, reusable, stainless steel water bottle...AKA my Wana'-Be-Portlander water bottle. If any body asks me why I use such a heavy duty water bottle you can bet I will answer them proudly by saying "Just doin' my part to save the trees." That's about all the tree-hugger I have in me. I guess I could do better at recycling if you gave me a green stainless steel recycling bin.
Once again I’m off topic....so basically the whole night I craved water, oh and pop corn. I live on pop corn, ask my mom's shopping list if you don’t believe me. I went to bed that night, I wouldn’t be surprised if I had dreams about drinking water. Actually now that I think of it I had a dream about being in the 8th grade all over again and not being able to open my locker.
I woke up this morning still wanting water. I decided to fill my day with stuff to get my mind off of water. My day consisted of me going to Poynter, hangin with my friends, going to the library, driving with my brother, sleeping, and cleaning my room. But no matter what I did I still needed water. Even the rain was shouting “Drink me.” As soon as 5pm came along my whole family was more than ready to end our 24 hour fast. Sarah and I wanted to go to Olive Garden. We both LOVE Italian food.
We all hopped in the car and Sarah was driving. This meant we were going to be driving slower than my grandma drives, and that is very slow. Sometimes I find myself check to make sure she isn’t sleeping based on the fact that I could probably walk faster than the car. Once we made our way to the freeway on-ramp we knew we were in trouble. There was big time traffic. It looked as if it was the end of the world and the whole town was getting out of town. Why did the traffic pick today out of all days to be slow? It felt like days were passing as we waited for the on-ramp lights to turn green. Slowly, but surely our car inched closer and closer to the front of the line. Finally we were there. Once the light changed from red to green Sarah shouted "Freedom!" That's Sarah for you. I thought our slow traveling was over, but I was wrong. We went faster in the on-ramp line than we did on the highway.

As I sat in the back seat I glared at the opposite side of the highway. They had open space with freely, speeding cars. A half hour passed and we were about to see the reason for the incredibly slow traffic. It turns out there was a guy who got pulled over and wouldn’t move his car. I felt like he was purposely slowing traffic to prevent me from getting my long awaited drink of water. Once we passed the car, I looked to the other side of the highway and they were all stuck in traffic caused by all of the rubber necking. It had been an hour by the time we pulled into the jam packed parking lot. It took five minutes to find a parking space and another five minutes till Sarah squeezed the car into a narrow parking space. My dad decided to play a sick trick on me. He said “Oh gosh, I think I forgot my wallet. Do you guys have any money?” I think my heart skipped a beat or two. It took me a minute to regain consciousness. When I walked into Olive Garden I had a smile of relief on my face. I was excited to get a cold drink of water. Five seconds after walking in, I found myself walking straight back out. We would have had to wait another hour before being seated, and even after that we would have had to wait for our food to be served. Yeah, not gunna happen. As we drove to another restaurant my mom asked the worst question you could possibly ask your starving child. “What do you want to eat on Father's Day for dinner?” Oh great, thanks mom for making me think of all my favorite foods that I would love to be eating right now. I began to describe exactly what I thought would be the perfect meal. I said "We need stake, baked potatoes with bacon, cooked carrots, seasoned asparagus, and cheese cake." I regretted saying cheese cake. I make a mean cheese cake, and I just thinking about it was killing me. Just when I convinced myself nothing else could go wrong my dad said “We are out of gas.” We had been driving with the gas light on since yesterday, when Sarah said she would fill it. I was worried about running out of gas and having to be towed all the way home and never getting to eat for the rest of my life. With panic in my mind I convinced my self that I needed to persevere. I told myself we would soon be at HomeTown with a plait of food in front of me. We continued to drive and I spotted HomeTown “There it is!” Even before we parked the car I had my seat belt off and my hand on the door handle. I waited till the car pulled between the two white lines and I jumped out. I told Sarah right then “Good thing there is never a line when we come here.” I walked into HomeTown and what did I see? A line …”someone sure has a ‘great’ sense of humor.” As I waited in line the suspense, of not knowing when I would ever eat again, was killing me. My family and I were finally seated. Our 24 hour fast turned out to be a 25 hour fast, and yes that extra hour made all the difference. But I would definitely do it again for what I get out of it.