The chocolate bar

It's just another day as I walk into my Elementary school, hang up my backpack and jacket and walk to the first class for the day. I talk with my friends as we gather at our desks about everything we did over the weekend. Mellissa got a kitten. I'm so jealous. I pull out my books, and we start our first lesson. As the day progressed, we moved between rooms learning about Columbus, verbs, and nouns; we painted and drew, ran and chased, ate forgettable cafeteria food, and laughed.

Then as I am sitting in my last class of the day before we line up, get on the big yellow busses, and head home for the day, I hear, Sarah, please come to the office. I hear over the intercom in my classroom. I am surprised as I lift my head from my textbook, but I gather my items from my desk and head to the office, unsure of what is happening. My sister also goes to the office with her backpack and jacket. As we turn the corner, we see our mom. Mommy, we exclaim, so excited to see her. She signed us out early, so we were free to go.

We race to her gold olds mobile and jump inside. The smell of old cigarettes fills the air wrapping us in a warm hug of tobacco as we put on our seat belts. Although we don't know where we're going, we're excited to leave school.

Our first stop was the grocery store; once inside, we were told we could go and get any candy bar we wanted. I remember this part of the memory very clearly; what I didn't notice with my 7-year-old eyes was the case of beer she was buying or the open bottles she had on the passenger seat that she had bought earlier that day. We were just happy with the chocolate bar we got.

As my sister and I get back into the car, our mom opens the box of beers and pops open a can—just a typical day. As we happily munch on our bars while driving down the road, we notice red and blue lights behind us and the sirens getting louder. Our mom is now going faster and faster, racing out of town till she finally pulls over.

Dam, she mumbles under her breath; if I had just made it to that sign, I would have been out of their Jurisdiction. She then remembers the open cans and bottles and frantically shoves them under the passenger seat.

Next, we see the cop walking over to the car; he taps on the window, my mom cranks her window down, and he looks inside, I'm sure, smelling the alcohol on her breath. Once he returns from running her registration, we all get out of the car. My sister and I stand on the side of the road, backpacks in hand and chocolate smeared on our faces waiting as our mom talks to the cop.

One of the benefits of living in a small town in Wisconsin is that drinking and driving is a regular occurrences, so people look out for one another. Instead of my mom going to jail, they let her call a friend. Once they arrived, We left the car on the side of the road, bottles, and cans confiscated, and they drove us all home. Although ill never know what her plan was or where she was taking us, it wasn't meant to happen. I never told anyone about the day our mom pulled us out of school early.