The Summer of 2026 is building up to be one of the best summers of all time. New movies, moneymaking opportunities, fun activities, and more. But one event exclusive to summer is spending all day and all night with friends. While spending time with them, I like to do these things with my friends called “Side Quests.” Side quests come from video games and are small adventures that take place outside your main quest, and essentially are where you do completely random things. In our case, the main quest is life, and the side quests are just fun things to do along the way. While people may call my side quests “completely dangerous” and “not safe for children,” I say that if shark diving is unsafe, then pigs are flying. But anyway, here is my list of side quests you can do with your friends for a perfect summer:

• Wait till it rains, cover yourself in cooking oil, and try to fly down a steep hill.
• Go to urgent care after you hit your head on the tree at the bottom of the hill.
• Greet a pretty doctor named Dr. Susan.
• Flirt a little bit with said Dr. Susan and pretend you’re all fine so she dismisses you.
• As you’re leaving, joyride in a car that happens to be in the parking lot of the urgent care.
• Apologize to Susan for stealing her car.
• Run away from Susan after she attempts to run you over.
• Stop by the local Chipotle, ask for a burrito, and let them know an urgent care worker is attempting to run you over.
• Move two states over so Susan cannot find you.
• Take a trip to Hollywood to photobomb a local movie set and ruin an up-and-coming directors dream.
• Get chased off the Hollywood lot.
• Move back to Virginia and reenact the Battle of Gettysburg even though it’s in Pennsylvania. 
• Yell at your friend because he couldn’t tell the difference between a prop gun and the real thing.
• Mourn the loss of Carl.
• Visit a private island.
• Realize that the private island is owned by the leaders of the church of Scientology
• Lie and say that you didn’t see any of their cultish rituals. 
• Run away back to America.
• Run away because Susan found you again.
• Buy new burritos and throw them at Susan.
• Eventually, get Susan off your tail.
• Eat the other burritos as a celebration.
• Throw up because those burritos are now a month old.
• Go to the doctor because you have a lot of green bumps on your face.
• The doctor tells you that you need to be quarantined due to the fact that you have Hantavirus.
• Question how you got Hantavirus.
• Realize that you probably got the virus at that Scientology island.
• Simultaneously, realize that returning to the states brought back the virus to the mainland.
• Consider that maybe Scientology was trying to save you.
• Decide to order Chipotle because you are CLEARLY not in the right mind if you think the church of Scientology has your best interests at heart.
• Doordash Chipotle. 
• Realize that you drained your and all of your friends’ bank accounts.
• Realize that you also crashed the global economy. 
• Take out a loan to buy school supplies.
• Realize that the whole world is doing asynchronous school again.
• Finally, turn on your computer to Zoom and begin the new school year.