A Cold Winter Essay Research Paper A

A Cold Winter Essay, Research Paper

A Cold Winter

It was in the middle of winter on a dark smoggy night,

chills were running through the house in and out of my room like

a quiet ghost silently coming and silently going. As I lie awake

in my bed thinking of what the next day should bring, my eye’s

start to grow heavy as I doze off. In the distance I hear a faint

booming sound, soon it starts getting louder and louder and still

louder until I could hear nothing but the noise. I was unpleasantly startled and hurried over to my window. As I look out I could see nothing but smoke and fire, catching this by surprised I ran to my little brother’s room, finding no one.

Then in the distance I could hear faint voices of terror calling my name. It sounded as if it was coming from out side, so I ran as fast as my Nike slippers could carry me down the stairs and outside into my front yard. I find the rest of my family there, along with my neighbors and their son, my best friend.

I just stood there in horror with the rest of my family and friends. We had no idea what had happened. The next morning I really don’t remember very clearly, but what I do remember was reading the news paper and coming across an article about a house burning down not to far from mine. I really didn’t know what exactly to think at that time until it all clicked upstairs.

The noise the night before had been the house burning down and the natural gas line exploding. Later in the article it said that our block of houses wouldn’t have any natural gas heating until the line was repaired. The first thing I did was run to the kitchen, finding my Mother and Father there fixing breakfast. I started talking so fast I really don’t even know what came out. My Mom told me to calm down and sit at the table. Doing so she gave me a glass of milk, and seeing that I was distressed sat down next to me and asked me what was on my mind.

Taking full advantage of her attention I told her as slowly and detailed as possible at the time being. As soon as I had finished my frantic attempt to get all that out, she didn’t laugh at me but just got that look in her eyes where you know that she didn’t believe a word of it. The fist thing she said in response was “Where did you hear about this?” I answered her as fast as possible “In the news paper”. Stunned at my at my quick answer she told me to bring her the article. So I ran back up the stairs and snatched the paper from my bed. When I got down stairs I laid the article out flat in front of my mom’s face. A subtle but shocked look arose on my mother’s face, as she sank deeper into her chair.

Shutting off the radio, I sat down next to my dad asking

him what we were going to do for heat, he just answered “I don’t

know I just don’t know.” shaking his head in resistance. Later

that day I was over at a friend’s house who had heat. We were

playing a video game and eating chips in his living room. The

walls had many game heads on them, one of the nicer ones was a

whole stuffed mountain lion that his dad once had a special tag

to hunt. The whole time I was there I was brainstorming on how to

get heat in our house.

Soon I was in the back seat of our extended cab black GMC pickup. My little brother was on my mom’s lap and my dad was just starting to drive onto the onramp. Which is not an easy task on a daily basis, when you live in Detroit. As soon as we started getting close to the freeway there was a huge traffic jam. I think we must have been there for about and hour and a half. I don’t really remember because I was trying to go to sleep. When I woke up we were on the freeway driving about 40 m.p.h. because there were so many cars.

But soon we were back in my neighborhood. We stopped at the local McDonald’s to get some lunch. Luckily my dad had gotten his pay check cashed and in the bank the night before. So as we walk into the McDonald’s we find surprisingly small lines. I ordered what I always order at McDonald’s, a number 7 value meal. This contains two cheeseburgers, large fries, and a large drink. After we all had ordered and finished eating, we drove back to my house.

A two story medium sized house with hunter green trim. I walked up to the door and opened it with the key I wear around my neck I walked in finding it no warmer than outside. I walked over to the bathroom, still thinking of how to warm the place up, while I relieved myself from the super sized Mountain Dew I had just finished drinking. Then it came to me, I could warm up the house by leaving our electric oven open on about 350o.

So I took this idea to my mom, I approached her with a look of genius on my face. Seeing me looking like that my mom started cracking up as soon as I walked into the room. Guessing that this was not the greatest time to talk to my mom about a silly idea like mine. But what better time is then from now? I am, correction, WE are all cold it is in the middle of winter, and there is no heat. So I walked up to my mom as smoothly as a pair of old worn out Airwalks are capable of, and had already gained her attention by the cheesy but smart look on my face. Telling her about my idea actually went a lot smoother than I would have guessed it to have. She thought it was a good idea but had to make sure about a hundred other times that I was talking about the electric oven and not the gas one. Of course I was talking about the electric oven, what did she assume I had a death wish or something? I was about to come back with the smart comment “don’t assume Mom, do you know what assuming makes out of us?” But then I thought that it would probably be better to just keep my mouth shut, than to get in trouble for talking back to my Mom.

Well we did that for about a week or so, and then the gas line was fixed. FINALLY, heat!!! Boy was I happy to be back living with the fake fireplace working again, those corny looking logs with a flame coming out of the middle of them. Well I guess I can’t complain, I never had to chop wood, unlike some of my other friends.

Pages 4

Lines 103

Words 1,199