Everyone loves a good story—even the ones about things going completely wrong. Fresh Ink Friday is our new weekly series where our writers take on a different prompt and share their thoughts. To kick things off, we asked: What’s a personal failure of yours? Here’s what they had to say:

Shruthi: 

The smell of steaming, burnt prepackaged food. An incredulous, “How do you over boil noodles?” And a ban from the kitchen that, quite frankly, I probably earned. It all started with a simple craving for Maggie during TFA State—just a warm, comforting bowl of instant noodles after a long day of debating whether utilitarianism justified some dystopian policy. As someone who grew up with a mom who winged measurements and still made Gordon Ramsey approved food, I kinda just assumed I had the MasterChef genes. So, easy enough, right? Wrong. 

Somewhere between trying to argue with my roommate about the proper noodle-to-water ratio (a debate I clearly lost) and getting distracted rereading my illegible flow from prelim rounds, disaster struck. The water evaporated. The noodles fused to the bottom of the pot, mirroring the ill-advised “science experiments” I used to test with baking soda and vinegar growing up. The entire hotel room smelled like a combination of metal and my own failure. My roommate, horrified, declared an immediate and non-negotiable ban: I was never to touch the kitchen appliances again. And honestly? Fair. 

But the whole thing did leave me with a slightly unsettling realization that I still think about to this day— if I can’t even handle instant noodles, how am I supposed to survive college? Cooking aside, I feel like I am barely holding it together as it is. At the moment of the “great noodle disaster” I still had 2 years, but watching seniors leave time and time again, completing their applications, filling out housing forms, determining class schedules, and the existential dread of laundry all haunted me. Forget fresh meals. However, I think it’s the silly failures you look back on and laugh at that sometimes make the biggest changes. I’m finally trying to learn how to cook something that doesn’t require a fire extinguisher. Or at the very least, something that won’t get me banned from the kitchen.

Rafan:

When I was in first grade, my family rented out a space at the Wellington Activity Center for my birthday party. It was probably the biggest birthday party I have ever had for myself to this day. It felt like a big deal. My parents had invited all my friends, there were decorations everywhere, and they hired a magician to put on a show for everybody.

The magician was doing tricks with cups, pulling volunteers from the crowd, and keeping everybody laughing. The grand finale came when he finally called me up to the front. I was excited but nervous, standing there with everyone watching me.

When I try to remember today, the whole trick is a blur. I imagine he handed me a coin to make disappear or put his hat on my head for a rabbit to appear or something like that. But no matter what, I was feeling uneasy being in front of all my friends and family. That’s when it happened. I felt a sudden urge to use the restroom, but it was already too late. Right there, in front of everyone, I peed my pants.

I can still vividly remember calling for my mom as the room went silent, followed by awkward whispers. My face burned with embarrassment as my mom led me to the bathroom. I remember waiting in the bathroom stall as my dad drove back to our home to fetch me a fresh pair of jeans to change into. Despite the aunties comforting me, telling me it was normal, and trying to reassure me that nobody noticed, I didn’t want to stay at my own party anymore. My neighbor, who was really kind, suggested that she take me home so I could play with their dog, Jenny. I played with her for a while until I could forget about what happened.

Looking back, it felt like a disaster, but I’ve since learned that embarrassing moments don’t last forever. Eventually, everybody will forget all of those moments that felt really significant to you. 

Anis: 

Art class was the bane of my freshman year. I was someone whose artistic growth was stunted in 1st grade, when everyone was still making stick figures their parents hung on the fridge. Wielding a paint brush didn’t come very easy to me. However, I needed a fine arts credit. After searching through many classes on Skyward (I’m tone deaf, so a music course wasn’t an option), I finally settled on Art 1. I believed I could manage it, so I went ahead and added it to my schedule. Little did I know, it would be more challenging than I thought. 

One day, as I was sitting in my fourth period class, the teacher displayed images of—what looked to be ceramic— masterpieces created by students in the past. In one, a monster grinned at the class with sharp teeth. Others featured fictional characters, from Goku from Dragon Ball Z to the iconic Mickey Mouse. The creations looked stunning. Despite knowing I lacked the ability to make something semi-decent, I was enthusiastic to create one to bring home with me and place on the shelf on top of my bed. It didn’t seem too hard to me. After all, many students were able to mold recognizable faces and intricate designs to create pottery they were proud to take home. Why couldn’t I? 

For days, the whole class dedicated themselves to making their pottery. The first step, our art teacher explained, was rolling up the clay into thick noodle-like structures. One by one, I wet my clay and stacked up each unique noodle I made. My goal was to make a cute emoji I could put on the shelf of my bed. Emojis had simple faces anyone could make, right? After putting my lovely stack of clay noodles on the shelf, I went home. When I returned the next day, I was shocked. My soon to be masterpiece had toppled over. 

Embarrassed, I told my art teacher. She explained to me there wasn’t much time, so she allowed me to make a shorter emoji. Nevertheless, my emoji was still going to be perfect. I was behind in the class, and my pottery looked like a mess, but that didn’t stop me. I smoothed out the clay lines until it finally looked somewhat like a vase. I formed an eye and a tongue, successfully creating a winky face. On the counter lay several different colors of paint. I picked jet black to paint my pupil and bubblegum pink to paint my tongue.

The next day, our works of art were heated up and finally hardened. My classmates showed off their pandas, cats, and elephants. My emoji? Well, let’s just say it looked like it had seen a lot. The paint was sloppy and the eye was more of a hexagon than a circle; the poor thing looked traumatized from the fiery kiln. But it was still my creation, so I didn’t let it get me down. Instead, I brought it home and placed it right where I planned to put it: the shelf on top of my bed.

I decided to name my artistic failure George. To this day, George still sits on the shelf, an unflattering neighbor to my books and stuffed animals. He isn’t all bad and is pretty useful when I need something to quickly store a small item. While it was disappointing that he didn’t turn out as I hoped he would, he is still a reminder to me that sometimes a failed creation can still come in handy.

Sasha:

Failure is an inevitable part of life, and while it can be difficult to face, it plays a crucial role in personal growth. It shapes us, teaches us resilience, and helps us learn from our mistakes so we don’t repeat them. Looking back, I realize that some of my biggest lessons have come from failure, even when I didn’t recognize it at the time. One of my most memorable failures happened last year during my studio’s first competition. I had been preparing for months and when it was time for me to step on stage, I held my head high with the confidence behind my hours of practice. But as I sat into my beginning pose, my mind went blank. I forgot my choreography.

For a split second, fear paralyzed me. The music began but my body stood still, unsure of what step came first. Panic set in as I looked across the row of imposing judges, microphones at the ready, poised to record their critiques of my ability. I knew I had to get moving. Instead of letting my fear consume me, I pushed myself to start dancing, improvising as best as I could. I made up over half of my solo on the spot, relying on instinct and muscle memory until I could pick up with the original choreography. The moment of panic felt like an eternity, and as I finished my routine, I walked of stage with my head hung low, I couldn’t help but feel like I had let myself, and my teacher down. 

As I walked towards my dance teacher, I was convinced she would be disappointed. Instead, she pulled me into a hug, telling me how incredible I was and that it was the best she’d seen my solo. I stood there, shocked, struggling to process what she had just said. Hesitantly, I admitted that I had forgotten most of the routine. Her smile widened and said she couldn’t even tell and that was what made her the most proud. 

At that moment, I realized that failure isn’t just about making mistakes; it’s about how you handle them. Even in a high-pressure situation, I had pushed through and adapted. I had faced a moment of panic but refused to let it define me. That competition taught me that mistakes don’t determine my success but rather my ability to recover and grow from them does. Now, I have confidence in myself, knowing that if I ever freeze again, I can keep going. I no longer fear failure the way I once did; instead, I see it as an opportunity to learn and improve. 

What once felt like a disaster turned out to be one of my greatest lessons. I now understand that perfection isn’t the goal, growth is. Failure isn’t the end of the journey; sometimes, it’s just the push we need to become even better than we were before. 

Nina:

Taking AP Statistics in the second semester of senior year is not for the faint of heart. For some reason, my sense of urgency always starts to hit around 11 p.m., in the form of a small heart attack. I fought hard against gravity to keep my eyes open, sitting on the edge of my bed, my hand weakly holding up my pencil. How does this happen, every single time? Why do I put myself into the same position? I check the clock every time I finish a page, glancing longingly at my pillow waiting for me. For every unit of statistics, there is a new (and thicker every time) FRAPPY packet to complete. FRAPPYS stands for “Free Response AP Problem Yay!”, which I personally think is a grossly misleading name for the amount of years I lose off of my life trying to complete them. 

It is true that we have multiple days to get started on the packet. It is true that completing said packet would help me on the day of the test, the day it is due. However, it is also true that I am tired, ready to graduate, not taking the AP Statistics exam because my college will not accept the credit, and just “taking a breather” before I have to get serious over the next four years, and really the rest of my life—this is my condemning train of thought for every unit, and why I have consistently failed to do my FRAPPY packets any time other than the night before the test.

Now, entering the last nine weeks of my high school career, and AP Statistics, I will put an end to my personal recurring failure that is never completing the FRAPPY packets at a reasonable time. Even if just two days before the deadline, it is one step forward towards beating my procrastination tendencies and being a slightly more productive version of myself, saving me from excessive amounts of stress and allowing me to sleep for more than five hours the night of my test.

Ava: 

A personal failure that still affects me till this day is my inability to learn my times tables in third grade. I transferred classes a few months into the school year because my old teacher forgot all of the kids in my class at recess one day, and my new teacher was already well into the multiplication unit with her class. She was probably one of the worst teachers I’ve ever had, which didn’t contribute to my struggle to comprehend the multiples of seven. I would fail every timed quiz we had, and the worst part was that we had a Class Dojo, so your grade would be displayed to the whole class depending on what color belt you had. Class Dojo was a play on Tae Kwon Do where every time you passed one of the timed quizzes, you went up a belt color, like a real dojo, just with multiplication.The belts were white, yellow, orange, green, blue, brown, and black (in that order), and she would put your color belt next to your name on the wall. By the end of the unit, I was the only kid who still had a yellow belt, and it was humiliating. So, the week before our last timed quiz, I went home and studied like I’d never studied before. When the teacher gave me that paper, I was locked in. Somehow I had memorized all my multiples of 12 and even got the bonus section. When I got that quiz back I was ready to see a 100, but to my dismay, I had failed. She had marked almost all the questions wrong because I hadn’t closed my number six all the way. I went home distraught that day, wondering if I’d even make it to 4th grade at that rate. I explained to my parents what had happened and showed them my quiz, and luckily they had my back. Technically, I never learned pretty much any of my times tables and still had to go to tutoring in the 8th grade, but my parents got me that orange belt. Unfortunately that little win was nothing compared to the many failures that came in consequence to not knowing multiplication and having to do mental math for the rest of my elementary and middle school career.

 

Isabella:

My siblings said it would be a good idea to take the SAT/ACT prep class so I could be better prepared when it came time for the actual test. In the fall semester, I took the class and was deeply humbled. I hadn’t taken a math class since the fall of last year, and ,although I like writing, I’ve never been familiar with all the grammar rules. I had forgotten all the math theorems and formulas and when it came time for the quizzes, my teacher smiled cheerfully, handing me my quiz with a 30 circled on the top. The first week, despite not learning anything, was a test of our knowledge, so we took the SAT and ACT. As I flipped through the pages, I knew how to answer the simple problems, but as I progressed, the questions got harder,so I just stuck with the statistical solution and put down the same answer for every question. On the ACT, 20 questions were left blank, and I felt like the dumbest in the class. Maybe that was true. Despite my incredibly low scores the first time I took the tests, I began to learn the tricks; how to rule out an incorrect answer, how to quickly calculate a problem, and learned new words like ‘buttress’. By the end of the semester I had the most improved score in my class. While I continue to face failure in my everyday life, I think of this moment and others where I went from being the bottom of the barrel to shooting to the top. 

Ani:

On my mother’s birthday, I woke up at 11:00 AM. She had woken up four hours earlier, made breakfast for everyone, and left for her girls’ day. I, on the other hand, woke up half-asleep, knocked over my bedside lamp, and stepped on my dog’s tail as I made my way to the kitchen.

It was the second-to-last week of summer break, and I had not a care in the world. I spent the afternoon, my waking moments, bingeing Netflix and swimming in the pool, like any other day. It wasn’t until much later that I realized that my mother had not gone to work, but instead, would be returning just before sunset, to be welcomed by a full sink of dirty dishes, a laundry basket that had been neglected since mid-July, and a garden of dry, unwatered plant beds. And worst of all, no dessert.

In my family, it is a tradition that we bake the cake for each others’ birthdays. Not a random store bought cake that was only hers an hour before it was cut. It was my mother and I that did the baking in the family. My dad could cook a meal, but anything involving precise measurements and he was out. For reference, he would improvise the amount of chili powder and black pepper in a meal after he had made everything else. For my seventh birthday, my mom made me a two-tier chocolate cake with homemade fondant Ninjago characters on it. I bit the head off the Green Ninja that day. 

When I realized I had less than three hours before she would walk through the garage door, the evening became a frenzy of pots, pans, dishes, and especially kitchen towels. I had the recipe for my mom’s favorite flavor, carrot cake, pulled up to the side, with the dishwasher light blinking bright white, blue, and red, and the stove burners all lit with bright  flames as I tried to cook dinner.

The night ended so: one count of pasta (with a few burnt veggies for a unique flavor), one broken dish with glass shards shoved in the corner, and one bowl of carrot cake batter. With less than an hour to go, I shoved the cake in the oven and prayed.

Just as she walked through the door, I pulled out the cake and sat it on the cooling rack. As I stepped out of the kitchen to greet her, chaos cooked up his feast in my absence. Turns out, dogs really like the smell of cheese.

My dog jumped onto the counter where the handle of the pasta pot sat, facing outward, perfectly angled for a paw to knock it over, causing tomato-basil sauce, peas, and the just-melted cheese sitting on top to fly everywhere. 

At least the cake is good, I thought.

Safe, yes. Good, no.

As I approached the now-cooled cake (if you can call it that), I realized that, in my hurry, I had added baking powder instead of baking soda. I assumed there wasn’t a difference. Apparently, one is stronger than the other, and evidently, the cake had not risen, leaving a loaf of carrot and dough, sunken in the middle, unable to even stick in a candle. 

Out of that evening of disaster came a late night, as all of us stayed up. We cleaned up the kitchen, ordered takeout Indian food, and baked a new cake. Red velvet this time. We sliced the cake around midnight.

 

Lillian:

The world today consists of too much advanced technology. We, as humans, can communicate in the blink of an eye. To reach someone, all one has to do is shoot a quick text or email, or if they are really in need, call their cell phone. 

I, however, was not made for this modern era. I was built more for the “pigeon-carried letters” days that take about a week to get from one person to another, because that is about how long it takes for me to respond to text messages from friends, family, and anyone else trying to communicate with me. 

Now, I’m an 18 year old girl who has grown up with technology and text messaging her whole life. I should be the fastest responder out of everyone! But, the thing is, I really just have trouble responding to text messages. For one thing, I tend to have my phone on the “Do Not Disturb” setting, with the only people able to get through that barrier being my immediate family. And when I’m not on that setting, I will read the text message, decide it doesn’t need my immediate attention, and then forget about it for the next 3-5 business days. 

As you can probably guess, this has created some turmoil in my relationships from time to time. My best friend constantly gives me grief about leaving her “On Delivered” for days at a time. My dad has resorted to simply calling me when he needs to get a hold of me. My little sister has just learned to accept that I probably saw her message, but I won’t respond. But the first time I truly saw the repercussions to my inability to respond was my very first boyfriend. 

It was junior year, and for the first time in my life, I had a boyfriend! He was a year older than me, and I thought the world of him. He was kind, funny, and smart too. Now begs the question, what went wrong? Looking back on the relationship, there were several things that should have been signs to me that he wasn’t “the one”, but the initial reason was because I was a poor communicator. 

In my defense, it was February, the busiest month of my life. We had a Rosette show coming up in about three weeks, so I had practice after school for hours, and in my free time, all I wanted to do was rest. My boyfriend at the time was a second semester senior. This essentially meant he was at school for about two hours, and then went home and did nothing for the rest of the day, unless he was working. The two clashing schedules could have been worked out, if it weren’t for a lack of communication from my part.

He would text me a “Good Morning” at around seven in the morning, and the first time I would respond would be when I got out of school at 3:35. You can probably see where the frustration kicks in for him. After about a week, he had had enough of the three texts from me per day, and decided to break up with me. I was devastated, but it taught me an important lesson. 

Despite how difficult I may think it is, sometimes, in life, there are people worth responding to. 

 

Chichi:

The day was November 3rd, 2024. My mom and I had spent the day shopping, then eating out at our favorite chinese restaurant, shopping some more, getting groceries at the Chinese market, and finally stopping home, where we hauled our racks of clothes and layered produce bags in, each of us dragging mounds of plastic damage through the narrow doorway. 

After a well rested dinner, some light gossip, and binge watching our favorite show for the second month in a row, Gossip Girl, my mother retired to her room and I to mine, where I began some writing and reading. Afterwards, I spoke to my friends on the phone, scrolled through social media for a bit, and after cleaning up and getting ready for bed, I glanced at the clock: 11:20 P.M. 

I yawned, stretched out my arms, and went through my notifications one last time, seeing if there was anything of interest I had missed. School was tomorrow and it was in my best interest that I should get some sleep, so I tried to keep my check brief. 

That was when I noticed it. 

Chapter 11 Reading Guide – AP Biology Wilson 

Due November 3rd, 2024, 11:59 P.M.

Suddenly, my breath caught, and I halted and rose up in my bed. My mind raced, and I thought back to the printed copy of the twenty-page reading guide sitting on my desk, untouched, in the wake of all of the AP Lang reading I was doing for my upcoming exam. My procrastination had finally caught up with me, and now, I was going to pay the consequences. 

Right?

Well, not exactly. I glanced back at the clock, which now read 11:25 P.M. I pulled my charger out of my computer, opened it up, and quickly began drafting an email. I needed something show-stopping. Something so deadly and treacherous that my AP Biology teacher would halt as soon as she read it, immediately granting me an extension in the wake of her guilt. I mindfully flipped through my past events in my mind, recalling faint detriments and sorrows, and finally settling on my recurring IBS and constipation, hoping that this uncomfortable, squirming circumstance would save me from a late grade. 

At 11:45, I sent the email (this is the actual draft, by the way):

Good evening Mrs. Wilson,

I hope you are doing well. Starting on Wednesday night I began working on the chapter 11 reading guide, and currently I am about halfway through. I would normally be well off and finished by now, but on Friday I had to go to the ER because I have IBS. It is recurring and has affected my life immensely, as I have had to deal with extreme constipation that has lasted me well over a week. Last friday/saturday, I had been constipated for ten days at that point and had to go to the ER to seek relief through an enema. Afterwards, I began taking medicine and felt severely weak at home. I was planning on finishing the chapter 11 reading guide this Friday, Saturday and Sunday, but I have been so weak that I have had trouble even moving around. I’ve dealt with IBS for multiple weeks now, and it has looped me into a cycle of extreme constipation, then diarrhea, weight loss, and extreme weakness, and I have had to seek out multiple treatments for it. This is partly due to my dysfunctional eating habits, but I mainly think that it is due to stress. I had multiple standardized tests recently and for a long time I had been overly anxious and eating badly. I hate to discuss such uncomfortable topics with you but I wanted to make you aware of my conditions. 

Because of such events, could I please be granted a three day extension for the chapter 11 reading guide? While I would normally be more vigilant, I have been exceedingly weak and don’t know if I will be strong enough mentally or physically to complete all of my tasks in a shorter amount of time. However, I will continue to do my best to hopefully exceed your standards. Thank you for your understanding. All is appreciated.

Thank you so much for your time. Have a good night.

Chichi Wu

I know what you’re thinking. What a moron, right? Exactly. Who waits an entire week to do a 20 page, comprehensive reading guide? Apparently me.

The failure in this entire situation could have been in my procrastination while doing AP Biology, or possibly from the email itself, which surely tainted my poor teacher’s mind as she was reading it the next morning. 

She replied with a multitude of apologies, even allowing me an extension on the quiz we had coming up, as I had painted myself so weakly. Now, in the wake of my guilt, I ended up submitting the twenty-page reading guide two days later, on Tuesday. 

I’m proud to say I’ve never done such a thing ever again. Every other reading guide after Chapter 11’s was turned in on the due date, and started at least three days prior. If anything, I’m just relieved I’ll never have to resort to talking about an enema to get out of doing an assignment ever again. 

 

Ellen:

In my defense, it had been a long day.

Just last week, Spring Break 2025, my family was headed for Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. We woke up early to catch a flight, and from there, any hopes my family had of getting to our destination smoothly were squashed. I can only imagine that for security reasons, the Dominican Republic requires international visitors to fill out this extensive online form verifying each passenger, clarifying why they are visiting, when they are visiting, and so on. Well, that form gave my technologically challenged parents a hard time at the bag check kiosk. Because they refused to ask me or my younger sister for help, completing that task took them around 45 minutes. We weren’t allowed to move on from the bag check to security until we could show the American Airlines staff our completed forms.

We had a few moments of peace at the gate. We got through security relatively quickly, my dad and I multitasking and filling out the forms whenever we could, and were able to sit down for a while before boarding. We got on the plane, made ourselves as comfortable as possible in such a cramped, unhygienic space, and took off. I was out like a light, dozing in and out of sleep—until our pilot went over the loudspeaker:

“Ladies and gentlemen: You may have heard that loud vibrating hum earlier. There’s nothing to worry about, but we are being advised to land the plane in Miami to check it out. Personally, I don’t think we need to, but we’re going to anyway. On behalf of myself and the crew, we are sorry for this interruption.”

You’re kidding, right? It had been such a long morning already, with barely anything going to plan. The cabin filled with groans and passengers muttering in annoyance. Sure enough, in less than 45 minutes, we touched down in Miami. Waiting for us on the runway were these strange-looking neon green fire trucks. We were told to switch planes, so we waited at a gate for around 30 minutes.

Amidst the chaos, one thing remained constant: my AirPods. While my parents bickered over the forms and babies screamed throughout the airport, my trusty AirPods filled my ears with music. But in the plane switch, I misplaced them in the Miami airport.

As soon as we boarded our new plane, I reached into my hoodie pocket. Two years ago, after buying that hoodie on a trip to UT Austin, the right seam of the pocket had ripped. I knew how to sew but figured, hey, nothing’s gonna fall out of that. Well. Where my beloved AirPods clad in their butter yellow case had once resided was now just an empty ripped pocket.

My stomach dropped. I glanced up at the cabin aisle—countless passengers boarding, no chance of walking against the powerful stream of people. I called my dad, who was seated ahead of me.

“Too bad. You’re not getting off this plane.”

My mom, though, having overheard, turned around, glaring.

“Ellen, you get off this plane right now and go find those AirPods!”

So, with every bone cringing in my body, I annoyingly walked against the flow of traffic, boarding pass in hand. I explained to a flight attendant that I had lost something and just wanted to check quickly. Thankfully, they let me off. I raced through the now empty gate, scanning the room. And then, almost glowing in the distance, were my AirPods. I had never been happier to see that little yellow case. I ran back on the plane and took my seat, heaving. I hadn’t run that fast since seventh grade athletics.

So yes, I overcame that failure, with a little nudge from my mom. I got my AirPods back. I was triumphant. But, as fate would have it, that triumph was short-lived. Because just a week later, on the way home, I’m pretty sure I lost them again—this time somewhere in the vast abyss that is DFW Airport. I say “pretty sure” because I haven’t seen them in a few days. Maybe they’re buried in my luggage that I still haven’t unpacked. Maybe they’re gone forever. Either way, I think it’s safe to say I have officially failed. Again.

Emma: 

Opening the door to my room, I saw them, little black dots tracing the perimeter of my bedroom, marching around the carpet like a miniature battalion poised for battle. They swarmed my rosemary hair oil on the counter, devoured the vitamin c sugar scrub in my shower, and took shelter in my brand new pair of Golden Gooses on my floor. Red, hot fire ants.

Now, normally, when I see a small spider in my bedroom, I’ll vacate the area for a couple of hours and come back, praying the evil bug will be gone. This time however, my room was not filled with just one bug, it was infested, fire ants up the wazoo. In my typical Emma fashion, I failed to acknowledge the severity of the situation. I killed around 3 dozen ants by hand, squishing the little guys between two fingers. I left their dead bodies on the floor, hoping their mangled carcasses would scare off the rest of the army. But after two days of tiptoeing around and itching at ant bites, I’d had enough. 

While I knew the right thing to do was to tell my parents, I refused to let them see that I had let the infestation grow out of control. Decidedly independent, I went to home depot and grabbed the first ant killer I could find. Without reading the directions, I poured the entire bottle of powdery ant killer all over the floor of my closet, my bathroom, my shower, and my bedroom. By the time I was done, my room was a scene straight from “The Wolf of Wall Street”, white powder covering every surface.

Hoping to let the ants suffer, I left the pesticide for a few hours, unaware of the toxic fumes reeking from my room. Unknowing of the disaster she was about to witness, my mother walked upstairs with my dog to investigate the smell.

“OH MY GOD! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!” she screamed from across the house. With steam burning out of her ears, she explained to me that the ant killer I had used was specifically for outdoor use only and required only a teaspoon of power to be left on an ant hill. I had used the entire 24 ounce bottle in my room. 

You know when people buy organic fruits and vegetables because pesticides in large doses can be harmful? Well, I had poured down a cancerous amount of pesticide in my room, turning the entire upstairs into a biohazard. 

The American government says that, depending on the type, 500 milligrams of a pesticide can be harmful to the average person. I had poured down 680,389 milligrams into my room. 

Two mental breakdowns, one mop, and 3 vacuums later, I had successfully cleaned up my ecological hazard. While I may have failed to address my infestation properly, it’s safe to say there will never be an ant in my room again!