Howl Terror Love Filled

CNA classes were a punishment.

I had them every weekend for a month from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

For that month I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere except for school and classes.

My boyfriend at the time and I had crawled into the basement of an abandoned building downtown through a hole next to the exposed elevator shaft. An animal cut through the shadows and bolted out the exit behind us. I remember thinking that may have been some sort of bad omen, at least it scared the hell out of me. The dirt floor was littered with trash and old business reports from 1995. We were there for maybe 15 minutes before to police officers were shining their lights at us from the exit and yelling at us to come out. I had been in that basement before so it didn’t really seem likely that we would get caught. However, there had been an event down the street at the newly erected Wichita Arena and people had a keener eye to protect the shininess of their new play place. We were put in handcuffs and questioned and berated for our mindlessness. Except, I was eventually released. He wasn’t so lucky or at least wasn’t as cautious with his illegal possessions and they eventually found them in the pockets of his Jack Skellington hoodie. We sat in the backseat of the cop car together before my parents came to pick up me and my car. He apologized like I was the one who had gotten in trouble.

In the end it worked out though. My parents found my pack of cigarettes that night which eventually led to my mom buying me packs of cigarettes while simultaneously telling me that I should quit smoking. I completed my C.N.A classes at 17 and began working in the summer, which was a surprisingly existential experience. I can make more than enough to live on with this new cna job which will hopefully keep opening doors for me in the future. It all stems from one single event, one big event.