When I was in middle school, I was shut in a musty trunk full of clothes.
Granted, it was for our school play and it was for a very short time, but for a claustrophobic seventh-grader it was complete hell. I didn’t know when I auditioned for the role of the evil cat in Cinderella Shakespeare (an off-beat rendition of Cinderella) that I was volunteering to be tortured. In addition to memorizing lines, my role required me to crouch in a small trunk, then jump out and surprise everyone. Needless to say, I had perfected the “jumping out” part early on. Until we finally performed, I refused to let them close the lid all the way during rehearsals, and I usually stuck my arm out to ensure they couldn’t lock me in. Call me paranoid, but at least I didn’t end up like that girl in the urban legend who hid in a trunk during a game of hide-and-seek and never made it out.
Yet another thing I can’t do because of my claustrophobia is explore the steam tunnels under campus. Read Chris’s story on page 4 about students who have explored them and why administrators say they shouldn’t.
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