The date: October 30th, 1995. The place: Ellen Myers Elementary School.

I wake up at 7:15, eat my cereal, watch a Gilligan's Island rerun while getting ready for school. I was about to get dressed to go to school but then I realized the date was October 30th, the day before Halloween. That meant it was our Halloween party at school we were allowed to wear our costumes.

So after asking my mom, I ran into the room and put on my costume and I was ready to go to school.

See, every morning at the end of gym class we had these races. They always split us up into 2 teams. It usually ended up boys against girls and this girl I always got put up against always trounced me... morning after morning... and laughed at me. We were actually real good friends. We were both just super competitive.

Anyway, we started off with the usual game of beanbag tag and Dracula thought he was going to get the edge on me. He was almost to my spot but the cape wasn't a good idea. I stepped on it, he went down, and I tagged him.

Then it was the moment of truth. Me and my racing rival were lined up again, but today was going to be different. Today she wasn't going against Aaron the supremely intelligent, unbelievably handsome but always humble and ever lovable boy she trounced every morning. No this time she was up against Wolverine and I was determined to win.

We started out neck and neck like always. She got a step ahead but I picked up the speed and saw the finish line. I slid across just before she did. Finally victory! I jumped up in celebration.

But I soon realized I was still being showered with taunts and laughter. But this time not just from her but the whole class. Then I felt a breeze and looked down and saw that my cheap plastic costume ripped, and I was so excited about the day's festivities that I forgot to wear pants and my feelings of victory quickly turned to feelings of embarrassment as I waited for my mom to bring me some pants.

But even with that the day went on and turned out to be a very good day.