On November 2nd, 2020, Fairhope High School students were ushered out of the building due to a fire in one of the boys’ bathrooms. What…?

Not exposing the identities of the boys that started the fire, 3 freshman flocked to the boys’ bathroom during Lunch A. It is rumored that they tampered with a faulty vape device, causing it to light on fire. After throwing the vape in the plastic trash can, the boys covered the flame in paper towels. Soon, the fire alarm was called, and children were running down the halls to get out. It was as if The Purge movies suddenly became real life.

I have an annoyingly good memory of what happened that day. If I remember correctly, the temperature was somewhere around 65° Fahrenheit (18° Celsius). I was walking from the student parking lot after lunch with some friends, suddenly, someone runs out of the cafeteria screaming at the top of their lungs “SOMEONE LIT THE BOYS BATHROOM ON FIRE!!!” My friends and I were confused, as anyone would be. A fire? A fire. Sure, why not? Why wouldn’t someone decided to just burn the school down for no reason?

Teachers began to guide students out of the school, and everyone was in mass panic. There was a split between people saying “Oh, no! what could’ve happened?” and people saying “Sweet! I’m out of 4th period!” In all honesty, I was both. Since we just came back from lunch, we did not have a teacher to bring us outside, so we just stood there in silence. We tried to ask some of our other teachers what happened, but even they had no idea. We decided to sit on the tables, and wait.

We were cold, broke, and tired. So you can understand the kind of stress I was under. We were stuck out there for about 50 minutes. Most of that time was taken up trying to clear out the smoke that was more than likely already in the vent system. The worst thing, however, was seeing people check out. Then, they would actually attempts to make their way around the fire trucks trying to do their job. They have enough to deal with, don’t start thinking your desire to be warm and complain is greater than that.

By the time we were able to go back inside, people were still panicking. Groups of people where trying to cough up a lung, and pretend as if the little left over smoke was practically killing them. Not many people immediately went to their classes, lots of yelling, etc.

The weirdest part of this story is the fact that the 3 freshman filmed the fire and posted it on Snap-chat! They filmed themselves committing an act of arson, and posted it on Snap-chat. If that doesn’t say “21st century,” I don’t know what does. People spread the video like wildfire. It was hilariously ridiculous. They could’ve at least tried to not get caught.

In conclusion, 2020 will go down in history as the strangest, most irregular year ever.