The Guide to Being a 'Grown Up'

ONE

THE GUIDE TO BURNING A HOT POCKET 

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Self-proclaimed internet personality (and top of his theatre class), Danny Osborne was quite the chef, thank you very much. He sub-tweeted Gordon Ramsay for a duel of the pans just the other day. No surprise that he didn't get a tweet back, he's was just too talented and Gordon felt threatened. At least that's what Danny liked to tell himself.

But, in reality, Danny was just a theatre kid in university that ate Cup Noodle for every meal. He'd treat himself to the occasional scrambled egg, but he liked to stay humble and grounded, so, ramen was the way to go. It had been years since he'd had a hot pocket and he was feeling boujee, so today was the day that he blessed his tastebuds.

The sound of angels singing entered his ears as he removed the hot pocket from the small freezer the dorms supplied. The sound of angels was cut short, quite rudely if he does say so himself, by his dorm mate's daughter crying out for attention. He groaned and pushed his hot pocket back into the fridge and walked over to the other bed and picked up the little bundle of blankets.

"Well hello little Jujubee! You're pining for my attention again, I see. Well I mean, at least you're staying on brand, amirite?" Juniper cried louder at his words and a wave of panic washed over him. If anyone heard Juniper, they'd most likely rat to a professor and Juniper and Sam would get kicked out.

As much as Danny hated his roommate Sam, he absolutely adored Juniper, his Moana-esque looking daughter with adorable little ringlets. "Hey, hey, hey, it's okay! Do you want a hot pocket? They're irresistibly hot! Oh- and I can put it in the blender so you can eat it like baby food," He said in the traditional baby talk voice you use on children and/or dogs.

Juniper giggled at his words and nodded, even though she didn't understand a word Danny said. He carried Juniper over to the fridge and pulled out the last hot pocket, stuffing it into the highly unsanitary microwave. He thought about his possibly life endangering actions for a second then shrugged, I mean if I get fatally ill then I can skip my classes... so.... win win!

"Ok Jujubee, do you have a favourite flavour of hot pocket?" he asked the illiterate one-year-old.

She blabbered something incoherently, Danny nodding back in understanding. "I'm personally a five cheese kind of guy, but i guess you're entitled to your own incorrect opinion" he muttered under his breath.

Danny carried the little gremlin over to his unmade bed and handed Juniper her favourite stuffy, Mr. Squeaky Orange. He had gotten it for her after having a meet up with Sarah, from across the hall, for his biweekly tarot reading.

Sarah was quite the character, to say the least. She wore her hair in blonde dreads and always made sure that her piercing blue eyes looked bigger than they were supposed to, given the amount of white eyeliner she wore. Her room was filled with at least a thousand healing crystals (courtesy of Etsy and eBay) and was a self-proclaimed astrologist.

On Danny's fifth Tarot reading, he knocked on the door of Sarah's dorm room and her witch like girlfriend/roommate opened the door. "Hello Daniel" Olivia said, sounding like a kindergarten teacher with the weird the tone of her voice.

"Bitch, it's Danny, by the way. Do you want me to bring out my birth certificate?" he threatened, reaching into the pocket of his jeans for his blackberry. He always kept a photo of his birth certificate for this purpose exactly. He was born just 'Danny' not 'Daniel' and he got pissed whenever someone tried to call him the latter.

"Not again, thank you. Sarah is sitting on her bed," Olivia said. With a glare, Danny walked over to the bed on the left side of the room and their session began.

Danny didn't remember too much about that session, something about mercury being in retrograde, him failing midterms, and the potent smell of marijuana radiating off of the amateur astrologist. When his session ended, she offered him a stuffy of the 'Annoying Orange'.

He passionately hated that idiotic orange and wished death upon him and all his creators. Some may say Danny was being a bit harsh, but he'd say the exact opposite. It wasn't his fault that all the students in his middle school harassed him with quotes from the terrible, terrible, absolutely TERRIBLE, YouTube channel.

Danny even uploaded a video reacting and bashing on the innocent children's entertainment show. Danny's channel is still up and running to this very day, some may say he was the OG of all reaction videos. That was lie. Nobody but Danny thought that. His YouTube channel had a completely different genre now, one that the internet likes to call 'daily vlogs'. But hey, don't get discouraged, he still makes quality content for all his 101 subscribers. He likes to call his subscribers his 'Little Dalmatians' I think you can work that one out for yourself.

While Danny was reminiscing about his magnificent achievements, he smelled the faint scent of smoke. Oh fuck. The hot pocket was burning. Abandoning Juniper and her insufferable toy on his bed, Danny sprinted to the burning microwave. Upon pulling the handle, a ball of melted cheese squirted into his left eye, earning a blood curdling scream from Danny. Smoke wafted out of the microwave, triggering the smoke detectors and sprinklers.

Among all the chaos, Juniper began crying and screaming and shouting. Danny rushed to open the door, in hopes of airing out the room, but as soon as Danny touched the door knob, Sam burst in making beeline towards his frantic daughter. Sam pulled Juniper close to his chest, cradling her as he rocked her back and forth in the downpour of sprinkler water. It had looked like the perfect scene out of a coming of age movie, if the two weren't about to be expelled.

Sam finally quieted down Juniper, and for the first time, him and Danny looked outside their door. Everyone and their mothers were outside, frantically searching for the cause of the commotion. Even Vladimir Rozhdestvensky, the supposed school vampire had come out of his coffin to witness the action. The Dean of the school, Dean Reddnas (his first name is literally Dean) was pushing through the packs of students to get to their dormitory.

"What kind of hogwash is this?!" He hissed, flashing his yellow teeth. His breath smelled like sardines and Danny was in the front row seat of the splash zone. Inches away from the Dean's face, Danny was the main target for every drop of saliva that escaped the old man's mouth. Before Danny or Sam could make any excuses, the Dean screamed, "YOU TWO ARE EXPELLED! GET OUT OF MY DAMNED SCHOOL, YOU INCOMPETENT BUFFOONS! AND TAKE THE BABY WITH YOU!"