Tick Tock, goes the Clock.

Those two words always bring back a fond memory from the 9th grade when I decidedly joined my high school's debate team with aspirations to readily sculpt a career in law. I ended up far from pursuing any career along the lines. That story we can save for another night.

Sirena and I, who was my "debate buddy" stuck by me throughout a tournament that we had at Schurr High School in Montebello. As fourteen year old girls we ran around the high school not caring about debates or the subject matters, but took interest in the competitors and whether or not they were attractive at all. Considering it was debate team, it was a rare occasion that we found anyone the slightest bit decent. In hindsight I shudder at my own superficial and shallow habits as a teenager. In disappointment we stocked up on loads of junk food from the school's vending machines and made way to one of the rooms in which debate team members perform a specific event. The particular room we chose consisted of basic monologues and speeches, possibly poems performed by enthusiastic writers (we had no clue, or maybe it was just me.) We sat down in some empty desks that were available in the front and watched as a short Hispanic boy straighted himself in the center of the classroom.

Sisss. The room was silent and anticipating his performance, and in that silence Sirena had freshly opened a bottle of Pepsi and took a swig of the drink. "Tick tock goes the Clock" said the short Hispanic boy, as he rocked himself back and forth. At that very moment Sirena had almost choked on her soda and we had both started laughing hysterically. The embarassed looked on the boy's face was visible to the audience and he paused for a moment and proceeded with his speech. I can't really pin why exactly that very phrase had Sirena and I clenching our stomaches in that classroom. Maybe it had to do with the awkwardness of the short Hispanic boy as he rocked himself saying the words "Tick Tock" simultaneously. Or it could have had something to do with the thought of Gwen Stefani's new song that introduced with the words "Tick Tock" with Harujuku Lovers along with the thought that the Hispanic boy oddly resembled them and could have possibly been a fantastic candidate for a dancer in the video. I really don't know what exactly brought us to such outrageous laughter, but I do vividly remember the look on that boy's face as he gathered his courage back together and cleared his throat to utter the next words repeatedly "Tick Tick goes the Clock..."

I feel as if I'm running out of time.