First Day Disasters

As Stuyvesant students walked into the building for the first time in two months, they were greeted by … darkness? The building’s electricity had gone out with all the lights off, the escalators ground to a halt, and no heating for the pool, which had been drained. In the hallways, where there should have been newly polished floors and bright lights, all that could be seen was a thin layer of dust, spider webs, and one feebly turning fan.

“Chat, are we cooked?” asked a bored sophomore. 

“Did we show up a day early?” wondered an eager freshman. 

“I broke my mewing streak for this,” complained another freshman, who, though brainrotted, had the same ideas as everyone else. Nobody had realized the true cause of this situation until Principal Yu’s voice suddenly rang out.

“Never fear, Principal Yu is here! Heh. You all might be wondering why the school is…er….looking a little-”

“Decrepit?”

“Musty? Dusty? Crusty?”

“Don’t worry everyone. It’s all good! It’s not like all our custodial staff and lunch staff quit over the summer. That definitely didn’t happen! We didn’t make them work overtime and eat the leftover lunches from last school year—trust! And besides, this situation isn’t that bad…right? We’ll get through this together!”

“Yeah, just like we all got into this mess together,” grumbled a senior. “Maybe that’s what I’ll write in my college essay. ‘I Survived the Great Stuyvesant Disaster That I Had No Part in Causing.’” 

“Come on guys, let’s look at the bright side,” suggested Principal Yu. “As a special first-day treat, you guys can take a break from academics and help serve the lunch food! We don’t even need to heat it up since there’s no electricity anyway. Or we could meet in the theater and decide what to do next.”

“Um, Principal Yu? There’s a bug or something on your arm. It’s big and black, crawling kind of menacingly. Maybe you should check it out?”

“What did you say? A big bu-?”

From the corner of his eye, Principal Yu saw a blip of movement as another small creature crawled over the top stair onto the second floor. 

“AAHH!! Why are there so many?!,” screamed a junior.

Peering over the railing to the first floor yielded a view of a horde of cockroaches scuttling out from the auditorium doors, and countless freshies were trampled in the mad dash to safety. 

The eager freshman from before, somehow not crushed in the stampede, took charge, pushing his glasses up his nose and adjusting his bow tie. “I have an idea! We can crank the escalators ourselves, fill the pool with water from the Hudson, and there’s gotta be people at Stuy who can fix the lights, right?” 

“What’s your name again?” asked the sophomore. 

“Sheldon,” responded the freshman proudly. 

“That’s what I thought,” said the sophomore. “Well anyway, with all that energy of yours, you’re the perfect candidate for that escalator cranking. We’ll let you handle the bucket brigade from the Hudson too. Heck, you can even be the one to sweep any cockroaches that try to climb up from the first floor back down the stairs.”

“You’re not off the hook either, buddy,” said a senior. “You were like him just a year ago, but we seniors are the real bosses around here. Get to work!”

By that afternoon, it was clear that the plan hadn’t been executed perfectly. A senior had thrown a Brawl-Stars-playing freshman’s phone because they were allegedly “slacking on the job.” Plus, the incompetent freshmen had cranked the escalators in the opposite direction, making the down escalator go up and vice versa, resulting in some nasty injuries. Despite the fact that lights around the building were barely flickering and swim gym students were horrified at the strange smell of the liquid that was now in the pool, the escalators were slowly turning, thanks to the blood, sweat, and tears of countless freshmen. 

After panicked calls from some freshmen who desperately wanted to avoid the murky brown water filling the pool, a NYC health inspector came to test the safety of the pool, which turned out to have over 362 known diseases, as well another 20 that had never been seen before. There were also several fungi growing in the locker rooms that have been known to be life-threatening.

“I really think we should put aside these issues and focus on the fact that all these students seem so united in trying to fix the school!” pleaded Principal Yu.

The inspector didn’t seem to sympathize with his cause much, and described the flashing pool lights as a “safety hazard” that “could cause severely impaired vision.” To make matters even worse, as he was about to leave, he discovered the huge cockroach infestation, which he seemed completely appalled by and deemed “the greatest safety hazard of all time” that “could cause a whole lot more than just severely impaired vision.”  

By this point, students were absolutely exhausted from the day, and couldn’t bear the pain any longer. 

“I really wish we could just go home now,” a junior complained.

“Yeah,” a senior added. “I have college essays to write. This horrible day is the perfect thing for me to talk about. I’m going to get into so many Ivies.”

As more and more students started chiming in, Principal Yu climbed onto the security desk and made an announcement. “Guys, I’m really sorry about all of this, but honestly, nobody here has a clue on what to do. Obviously, we can’t do much about the situation, so everyone’s just going to have to go home.” Once he finished his announcement, everyone started crying with tears of joy and left as quickly as possible just in case he would change his mind. 

Evidently, Stuyvesant’s 2024-2025 school year hasn’t had the best start, but like Principal Yu said, “When has the student body ever been so united?” Together, we’ll find a way through all this trouble.