Gabriel Pingitore Descriptive Essay

September 16^th, 2010. I hear someone enter my room at 6:00 am, when I usually get up. I thought it was my dad so I really didn’t care. But then the character started to come up to me. I’m facing my wall so I can’t see them, yet I don’t want to turn around. I hear them pick up my phone, which is lying on the white drawer next to me bed. Am I being robbed? After I hear them typing and playing with the buttons on my phone, they walk to my dresser and I hear the change on the top moving. So I think to myself, “Dude…who’s taking my money?!” But still, I do not turn around. For some reason, I was afraid of what I may see. As the footsteps dawn closer to my bed, I feel the sudden lifting of the covers on my bed. Instantly, I turn around to see who’s in my room so early, and it was none other than the marvelous and wonderful Cecelia Baez, come to greet me every so graciously on my 16^th birthday.

I always told Cecelia it was one of my favorite dreams to have her wake me in the morning. But as to most dreams require, it was a little hard to do. There’s about a 20 minute distance between our Northeastern Philadelphia houses, 7 by bike (I ride fast), and 5 by car. She gets up at 4 am to prepare herself for the day, which means that she’d have to get up at 3:30-ish to be able to walk to my house. She doesn’t own a bike. And her parents are way too stubborn to give her a ride. Though on some days I occasionally wake up earlier so I can meet her at her house before school. But today was the exception. It may have been a little scary because I thought I was being robbed, but in the end, I’m super glad she did this for me. My dad even went out of the way to pick her up at her house and ride her to mine, crazy right? But in the end, that’s one more dream I was able to experience in my time.

“Dude, what’s Lulu holding?!” Said a curious Olivea at the lunch table with Jenn and I attending.

“Ugh…It’s my birthday present…” I grumbled, knowing it was just one more wackjob ideas of Cecelia. Long Nu, was holding a blue box, approximately the size of her. Wrapped, in blue Christmas wrapping paper. With her, was Bee Noi, filming Long Nu with the camcorder on my black iPod Nano. It seemed they were looking for me…but didn’t see me. I laughed and just waited.

“Dude shut up no it’s not!” Olivea said doubting my statement.

“Alright Liv suit yourself…”

“Gabriel!” Long Nu exclaimed as she finally found me. “Here! It’s a present from Cece! Open it!”

“Oh…you weren’t joking…” Olivea said, obviously feeling a little salty at that point. But regardless, I wanted to open the present. Before I lacerate the wrapping covering my prize inside, I read the notes on the front. Both reading, “I’m sorry it’s Christmas paper…it was all I had <3” and “In hur, had rush” which Jenn later explained to me said, “In a hurry, I had to rush.” So as Bee’s recording, I dig my way into the Christmas paper. And behind the wrapping, was a box, a cardboard box.

“Oh a box! It’s what I always wanted!” I said, obviously jokingly sarcastic. Removing the tape sealing the box, inside the box, was another box. And inside that box, was yet again another box. By the time I opened the 3^rd box, the whole lunchroom had formed a large circle around my lunch table. Box after box, wrapping after wrapping, tape after tape. The opening seemed like an eternity. Until finally…the last box. I unwrapped it and felt…disappointed. “Suede Shoes” was written on the front, and thought it was seriously a pair of shoes. But I was mistaken. Because inside the shoe box, was the final birthday gift… Turtle Tuck from Wonder Pets. I turned bright red, and the large group around me, even bigger from a few minutes prior, was now in stitches about the embarrassing turn of events. To think, I spent 5 minutes unwrapping 10 boxes, all smaller than the last, just for a little Beanie Baby turtle. It may have been embarrassing beyond all recognition, but one thing remains. I’ve slept with that turtle every day since, and I’m glad I had to go through a million and a half boxes to have it!

What is this? Creativity? Stupidity? Love? What is it that one single person can strive so hard to make me so undoubtedly happy? The things she can think of simply baffle my mind. I would have never expected the idea of the whole “box in box” theme. But rest assured, Cecelia did. But why is one person going so far out just to ensure that I’m happy? It’s the feelings she has for me… and that she’d do anything she could, just to make me smile even a little bit. And that’s why she’s made me the happiest person this past year. Random, crazy events are exactly what Cecelia Baez is known for. From enormous cards with my picture tapped to the front. To a box the size of Long Nu with something as unique as a Beanie Baby turtle inside? Something only Cecelia Baez would imagine in that little goofy head of hers. But in the end, that’s exactly why Cecelia Baez, is my favorite person in the whole wide world.