Why Don't I Always Listen?

I'm not really sure why, but whenever I get a feeling that I should do something, I have a tendency to ignore it. This is incredibly stupid of me, as you will see later on in my story.

This all started in seventh grade. I have severe peanut allergies that are so bad that I could actually die during an allergy attack because I can't breath, so I have to carry medication at all times and I am legally disabled. I was kind of wondering if I know things rea going to happen so that I can stay safe despite my disadvantages, but I'm getting off the point.

We were playing basketball and I started coughing really hard and my hands itched very badly, which is the sign that I touched a door handle or something with trace amounts of peanuts on it. I asked to go to the bathroom and I washed my hands and face because sometimes that helps. It didn't this time, though. I knew I needed to go to the office and ask permission to take medication, but I didn't want to because the office staff don't believe that I could need medication this often and always go through the whole procedure of calling my mom and making her confirm that I really do need it, by which time I have usually coughed until I can't speak. They once made me wait for a half-hour because mom was in a meeting and I missed two days of school after that because I literally couldn't talk my throat hurt so badly. So anyway, I was in the girl's bathroom and couldn't go back to gym class and didn't want to go to the office, and as I was trying to decide what to do I remembered the dream that I had last night. I dreamed that I was standing in the girls bathroom, the exact one that I was in now, and there were knives sticking out of all the walls in a circle around me and I didn't know where to go. It seemed like a metaphor for what was happening now, which really freaked me out.

Well, in the end I decided to hell with the office and took one of my pills there in the bathroom without their approval.

About a month later school was about to get out. On Sunday night (before the last week of school) I dreamed that I was in the school running from class to class along my schedule and I was getting pursued by these really nasty monsters that no one else could see. My teachers kept shoving me back into the rooms and it was really freaky. So when I woke up on Monday I just sort of shook it off and get ready for school.

About second period I started remembering my dream. My reading teacher was having a pizza party for the top readers, that included me, and she had baked some cupcakes and a cake and a plate of cookies. The smell was really good, but I only got to enjoy it for about five minutes because then my mouth and nose went totally numb. Oh, great, there were probably peanuts in the food, and it didn't help that my desk was right next to them. So I went up to the teacher and asked if I could leave. Nope. Halfway through the class she sent me to the office anyway because she was sure that I was coughing like I was on purpose. After that class the next teacher had brought the class peanut M&M's and she wouldn't let me leave the room. I did anyway and she gave me a detention. And then for study hall the teacher let us play outside, it being the last week and all, and some of the kids found a snickers wrapper in the trash and decided to use it to play a mean trick of me. The whole day just went like that and my parents were so mad that they let me skip the rest of the final week.

The last thing that happened to me wasn't a dream, but I still didn't listen until it was too late. I was walking out the back door on my way to school when I suddenly stopped short. All I knew was that I really DID NOT want to ride my bike that day. But I shook it off and rode to school uneventfully. However, that afternoon on the way home a car hit me. I was thrown about four feet away from my bike and was unconscious in the middle of the road. The doctor said I was in shock. I would have broken my back except that my backpack was full of books and my coat and I would have had brain damage but I had been wearing my helmet and I would have broken my nose if I hadn't been wearing glasses. My bike got run over and the car stopped barely a foot away from me, so if I hadn't been thrown off I could have been really injured. I can't remember a thing about it and there were no witnesses so I guess I'll never know what really happened, except that I definitely should have listened.

There was one last time where I didn't pay attention. The oral interpretation team at my school was going to a competition in a nearby town and I was going with them. The night before I had the most horrible nightmare, but guess what? I went anyway. Really smart, right? And even through the principle had assured my oral interp coach that they had a nut-free policy, they were giving away peanut-butter cookies to all the performers. My team was really mad because we had to do our presentations out on the front lawn so that no one accidentally made me sick. Ever since then whenever I feel like I need to do something, I do it!