We were asked to describe two scenes from our everyday life. The first being scenes from a familiar place such as home or at work. The second being a scene from a strange place that we are not familiar with. For my first scene I chose a typical day at home making dinner. As for my second scene I chose a chaotic moment in a store.
Leading the way up the basement stairs is my four year old. I’m following behind patiently as he conquers each step carefully. Nick reaches up to turn on the light switch, which I still can’t believe he can reach now. Placing our belongings on the dining room table, we start to settle in for the night. As dinner time approaches, I find myself struggling once again to choose a meal that is quick and filling for us both. Standing in my bright yellow kitchen, the color my mother picked out, I survey what items I can throw together. I open my oak cabinet to find a box of spaghetti noodles. Knowing that there is sauce on the rack leading to the basement gives me much comfort. So spaghetti will be the main course on our menu for the night.
Placing the only big pot I own under the faucet for some water, I hear a tiny voice screech in delight, “I help, I help”! Oh yes, I can use some help, thank you. I give my reply with a smile. Nick’s little face lights up with excitement. He proceeds to climb up the handles of my kitchen draws like a rock climber on a mountain. As he plops himself on the counter he says, “What I do”? We’ll you can put some salt in the pot and we will wait for the water to boil. Anxiously wanting to help he asks, “What I do now”? I then gave him a jar of sauce and told him to empty it in the pot with the frozen meatballs. Nick said, “Ok, but I no eat them”. My little helper clanged the spoon in the jar round and round until he got the last of the sauce out.
I could tell he was antsy to do something else so I took a noodle out of the pot and blew on it until it was cool. I then asked him if he knew how to tell when a noodle was cooked? He replied with a confident “No”. I then handed him a noodle and told him to throw it on the wall. His little eyes looked at me crooked as if I was crazy but with excitement in them at the same time. I said yes you have to throw it on the wall and if it sticks to the wall then that means the noodles are done. Well my son threw that noodle and it stuck. Before I knew it he was Spiderman and the noodle was his web.
Unfamiliar Place
Only an hour and a half before the reunion starts. I’ve known about this event for over a year and still haven’t found anything to wear. I’m sitting on my living room couch anxiously awaiting my mother’s arrival. My mom stomps up the basement steps and unloads her three large bags, of who knows what, on my dining room table. She will be my babysitter for the night. I told her that I needed to run to the store real quick to find a dress. She looked at me like I was nuts for not having found something to wear. “When now”? she asks me and I responded with yes now but I won’t be long at all. I run out the door and hop in my car. I managed to arrive at my destination in several minutes.
I rushed through the automatic doors and headed straight down the stairs for the dress department. I started pulling every dress in my size that looked halfway decent. As I make a mad dash for the dressing room, I am stopped by a young woman who needs to count my items. I tried to make small talk and explained how I had hoped one of the dresses looked good because I had to be somewhere in an hour. The young girl seemed very uninterested in my dilemma and gave me a crooked smile of acknowledgement. She handed me a tag with a big black number six on it.
In the small dressing room, I started throwing dresses on and ripping them off, as if I was in some sort of fashion show contest. The first black dress with the poke a dots is my favorite. I grab a second just in case and dash out of the dressing room for the register.
I slap my merchandise on to the counter, waiting patiently behind an old woman arguing with the cashier over prices. I can’t help but to roll my eyes with disgust. A young woman with big black bulky glasses approached the next register. I was relieved to see her and made sure to tell her along with the fact that I needed to hurry home. “I’ll ring you up fast” she replied. As she started to unhook the metal detector device, a loud zapping noise could be heard throughout the store and we stood in darkness. All but some scattered lights from the backup generator were visible now. My mind is running wild trying to process what was happening. Now I’m in a panic! Not because the light are out but because I needed to pay for these dresses and get home quick. After all I only had an hour and this was supposed to be a twenty minute trip.
I asked the young girl in her bulky glass, what happened? She replied, “We lost power”. Wonderful! Can you still ring up my clothes? “No the computers are down too” she said with a hesitant voice. Now all of the older women in the store started to flock toward the automatic doors. “Can we get out”? They asked. The male cashier started to pry the doors open for them. As I looked out the window, I could see that the whole shopping center was ominously dark.
This was clearly a much larger problem than I had first thought. What are the chances of that happening? Only me, I said out loud. All of a sudden an older man comes from out of nowhere and said registers one and two are working. This was music to my ears. As the other customers are preoccupied with getting out of the store, my only focus was paying for these dresses. Finally, a manual process had to be done, and with bag in hand I was off like a rocked into complete darkness.