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.
