But How Are Your Lockers Holding Up?

This past year and some has been absolutely excruciating for your locker. Now that they have to endure their pre-pandemic abuse again, do you wonder what they’re up to? I’m glad you said yes (if you said no, you meant yes) because I’m about to lay down all the passing comments I’ve heard from these lockers.

First Floor:

“Priya, Priya, look!”

“What’s up? OMG! The chorus kids aren’t singing today! I can finally take a nap! Stella, this is amazing. I might cry. Wait, Stella, why are they standing? Dang, they’re singing, huh? I want to leave this school. I’m so tired.”

“Priya, you are a locker. You don’t get tired. Now get back to work.”

Walking down that same hall:

“Hey, Tim, why did two different people just put stuff inside me?”

“You’ve been sold, Marc. That senior gave you away to a mere freshman because you were too ‘inconvenient.’”

“Oh, Tim, that’s so upsetting. So what if I’m all the way near the River Staircase? I’m plenty convenient… right?”

Second Floor:

“Walter, if I somehow summon the powers of the locker overlord to let the next iced coffee that this junior puts in me fall over, will I get replaced?”

“Yes.”

“Fantastic.”

Behind the senior bar:

“Bri, this doesn’t look like a senior sitting here.”

“Yeah, that’s a sophomore who felt too entitled to stick with the sophomore bar.”

“How preposterous. The current seniors got a few months of the sophomore bar before having this rite of passage ripped from them. The least the underclassmen could do is cope with their own spaces.”

“I know, right? The seniors went through the torture of ninth-floor lockers, too. Ugh, I feel queasy just remembering there’s a sophomore year.”

Down near Ms. Pedrick’s office, a particularly mind-boggling exchange:

“June, this might be it. Today’s the day I get up and go get that fun-sized Milky Way I’ve been eyeing for the past 40 days and 40 nights.”

“Jude, I don’t know who needs to tell you this, but you don’t have legs or hands.”

“Hush, Jude. I got this.”

Jude then proceeded to shake the whole locker unit so violently that it fell over. That’s why they had to put a water fountain in front of it—to prevent future large-scale mishaps such as this.

Fourth Floor:

“Tim, I swear, if one more pack of cereal gets shoved into my esophagus, I might combust. I can’t take it anymore.”

“John, I totally get you. I’ve had this big AP Calc BC book in there for three days, and I’m about to give out.”

“I think I also have five-day-old coffee in here? Wait, I definitely don’t remember all these cookie crumbs being here. Wait, Tim, am I just a food locker?!”

“HAHA, I think you’re right, John. The little delinquents only like you because you hide the food they can’t eat in class. That’s so funny. You’re basically useless.”
“Ok, I’m definitely not useless. You can’t just store post-practice Oreos anywhere. It is because of me that the plethora of children who swing by me always leave happy and sugar-filled.”

“You’re going to bring the rats down here from the seventh floor.”

“Oh, no, rats?”

“You have it easy though, John. I have about four sophomores and three juniors in here. The amount of forgotten English books is too many to count. I can’t even breathe with all these binders. I’m not even sure how they all decided this was the place to be. You said it first, this is in the way of most of the fourth-floor traffic. What’s the appeal?”

Ninth Floor:

“This is so upsetting. Why am I always empty? Why don’t the freshmen love me? Am I that bad? I have a nice view, though. What is it, Saph? Tell me why they laugh at those who visit my friends but refuse to give me a notebook, a binder, anything?”

“Suck it up, Costa. You don’t get paid to complain.”

“Saph, I don’t get paid at all. All I want is some love and appreciation. The amount of appreciative freshmen roaming this hall is dwindling; our time here will soon come to an end.”

“Costa, you sound just like Marge from near the Hudson staircase. They’re always talking about the end of the world and whatnot.”

Speaking of Marge from near the Hudson staircase:

“Lem, if the world just ended right no—”

“Marge, if you talk about the world ending one more time, I will use my nonexistent limbs and shove a club poster down your vents. Please. How can you talk about utter doom when the chemistry classrooms are right down the hall? This is, like, too much for my metal brain to handle. Like, you know how much the Sun would have to expand to engulf the Earth right now? I wish I could do that to end you. Leave me alone.”

“Wait, Lem. Aren’t you a locker?”

“You bring up a good point; a fabulous point, even.”

All in all, I know you were so desperate to learn the whereabouts and howabouts of your precious metal containers. Now you know them. Be nice to them; they’re just trying their best. Until next time, keep your lockers clean and your attitudes toward them even cleaner.