Let’s be honest, while doing anything, we all occasionally fantasize about the worst-case scenario. For example, while cutting something with a knife, a brief thought passes through your head that you might cut your finger. You finish with the knife without incident and ridicule the thought that you could have cut yourself. The fact is, we have these thoughts all the time, and they are just a part of life. Some of them can seem perfectly rational while others sound completely insane. These thoughts may not even be something you’re scared of on a day-to-day basis. 

There is a lot of anxiety for those returning to school, and of course, school has a lot of options for things that could go wrong, from modes of transportation failing to your pencil breaking while writing an essay, but those mentioned on this list have been taken through careful consideration and all meet certain criteria. So let’s take these thoughts and order them by how bad they truly are.

10. Stubbing your toe

What’s one of the most annoying things you can think of? Your pencil lead breaking? Is the water in the sink being slightly too hot? Well stubbing your toe is probably worse than both of those. Stubbing your toe has to be one of the most annoying things to happen to anyone. It is so unpredictable that you never truly know when it will happen. It could occur when you’re standing up to present or maybe even while you’re sitting down to eat, but when it does happen, it is TERRIBLE. 

9. Forgetting your homework

Ah, yes. Is there anything worse than forgetting your homework at home and then realizing it’s too late? Well, yes, but it’s still such a terrible feeling. The teacher asks for your homework, you realize that you don’t have it, and then everything starts to collapse. The walls start crumbling, the chairs, desks, and students all blur out of focus, leaving only you and the teacher. The darkness swallows you whole, but then everything comes crashing back to you. Of course, this isn’t a problem with virtual learning. 

8. Not studying for a test 

What’s worse than forgetting your homework? Forgetting to study for a test. Tests have so much weight to them that doing bad on even one can bring your grade down by 10%. You come to school and everything seems normal, but then you get a test that you didn’t study for, and you know you’re going to fail it. You have to spend the rest of the class doing something that you don’t understand or remember, and if you don’t do well, your grade will drop. All you can do is wait and hope for the best, even though you know how it’s going to turn out. It is a real nerve-wracking experience, to say the least. 

7. Getting detention

Detention has got to be one of the worst things ever created. You get to lose your free time just to sit in a room doing nothing. The teacher still gets to be productive, but you have to sit there staring into space. There’s probably a clock ticking down somewhere and that’s all you hear. It definitely deserves the title of punishment. The title of the worst thing to happen? No. At least it’s not permanent.

6. Getting expelled

Getting expelled though, IS permanent. While you can just go to a different school, it will be a lot harder to get into one because now it’s on your record FOREVER! As soon as someone sees that, they’ll have a worse opinion of you, so maybe DON’T get expelled.

5. Getting lost

Getting lost is completely terrifying and fear-inducing. You’re just trying to get home but you accidentally get lost. Now you’re just walking aimlessly and don’t know where to go. And it gets dark… and now you start running because you hear footsteps. Then it turns out you just went down a different hallway that leads to your classroom.

4. Falling down a hole

Ok so you’re walking, you’re looking up at the sky, you don’t realize that there is a gaping hole in front of you and you fall in. Surprisingly, there is no end to the hole, so you continue to fall and fall and fall and fall and fall and fall and– you get the picture. As you spend your time within this hole, you start to wonder: 1. how did I end up in this predicament, and 2, who put this endless hole in the middle of the school grounds? Not only are you wondering when you’re going to reach the end of the hole, but you also start to think about yourself. School, friends, work… Is it all worth falling down a hole for? And then you get tired of falling and reach for the rather long ladder that has been beside you the entire time and climb out. Happy to feel the bottom of your shoes on the ground, you then begin to notice the many holes all over the school: out on the field, in the parking lot, and even in the hallways. That’s probably not how you wanted to spend the rest of your life, stuck falling down a hole for eternity.

3. Walking into quicksand

Could you imagine walking into quicksand!? That would be horrifying. Quicksand looks almost EXACTLY like sand, so you wouldn’t know you were in it until you couldn’t move your legs and started sinking. Most people don’t even know how to get out of quicksand without outside help. You would be stuck there for hours. Imagine if this was on the secret student beach behind the tennis courts! You might be fully covered with sand before anyone comes by. Plus, with half of the students staying virtual and only half of the hybrid students in the building, it’s even less likely that someone will come to help.

2. Getting hit by a satellite (or other space debris) 

There’s not much to talk about here: space stuff+fall=you die. All of the stuff just floating around in space could just suddenly fall, and what if it hits you? You wouldn’t even have any way to know or an option to try to survive. It’s just an automatic death. It’s like playing the lottery of death; sure it’s not going to happen every day, but depending on your luck (or lack thereof) you could suffer the dreaded insta-death. 

1. Being abducted by aliens

This has got to be the WORST thing that can happen. It combines everything that’s bad about the previous ones. There’s no way to know when it will happen, and by the time it does, it’s already too late. And you don’t know what’s going to happen to you, so the whole time, you’re just feeling anxious. In fact, the aliens are probably more likely to pick students or teachers, since it is easier for them to grab someone from a large group. All they have to do is get to the right spot and hit one button. Then watch as they receive their prize. And it’s not like the specimen can escape. They could just snatch someone, and it is likely no one would notice until it’s too late. It is just the best plan. They get a wide range of test subjects all with many different age groups, plus no one would even notice what they did until they got away. 

There you have it: the top 10 worst things that could happen to you upon returning to school for hybrid instruction. Does this mean it is going to happen? No, probably not. The further down the list you go, the less and less likely it is to happen. It’s so easy for your brain to suddenly be scared to death of something that, in reality, is not very likely to happen. It’s where most phobias, like arachnophobia or claustrophobia, come from.  

They say the best way to overcome your fear is to face it. It may be hard and not fun at all, but you will feel so much freedom if you do. So go out there and face your fears! Unless, of course, your fear is being abducted by aliens, which is why I’m staying at home for virtual.

The following article is a work of satire, a literary work that uses humor, exaggeration, and irony to mock, criticize, or poke fun at a social or political trend.  All facts, details, quotes, and statistics are made up by the author.