WARNING: MAJOR PROFANITY AHEAD.
Yesterday afternoon, my dad, Wayne, had one of his teeth pulled and replaced with an implant. When he came home in severe pain, he took a couple of pain pills and laid down for a long nap.
He awoke several hours later, hungry and in even more pain, but he knew eating would just make the pain worse .. until he realized that ice cream would a great choice; it’ll satisfy the hunger and temporarily numb the pain.
In the living room, I’m chillaxing in front of the TV watching DVR’d South Park reruns. “How long ago did your sister leave?” my dad asks as he walks into the room. Cassie, my sister, came home from work and quickly changed and left like she does every night after work.
“I don’t know, maybe 15, 20 minutes ago?” I replied. “I wasn’t really paying attention; I’ve been sitting here watching this for like, an hour. She probably went to the gym. Why? Text her,” I continued.
“I need ice cream. My tooth is killing me, and I took a few pain pills today so I can’t drive,” he sighed.
“Ha, funny you say that!” I laugh. “The Ice Cream Man drove by earlier, and I wanted to wake you up so I can ask for some cash to get something. Figures; the one time I don’t bother you for something, you’re interested.”
“Was it Mr. Softee?”
“How should I know? I only heard him,” I respond. “Call Cassie and see what’s up with her. If she won’t go, I’ll take your car, hurhur,” I casually suggest, even though he probably wouldn’t let me drive his car if I had my license, he was dying and there was absolutely no possible way for him to get to the ER, including ambulance and other emergency transportation.
He gives me that “pssh, yeah, okay” look. “You can walk up there if she says no,” he says encouragingly.
“Bleh,” I whine.
He calls her, and of course they start arguing; they STAY arguing on some DUMB shit. “She said she’ll be home when she’s done at the gym, and not to bother her until she gets back,” he says, irritated and impatient.
“How long’ll that be?”
“Didn’t ask, didn’t say.”
“Probably forever.”
About an hour later, my sister finally strolls in and walks into the kitchen, where my dad is playing poker on his laptop. She immediately starts complaining about having to go in this “journey,” and tells my dad I can’t come with her when he asks her to bring me.
“Chill the fuck out, dude! What’s the big deal if I come?” I ask loudly. “I just want to make sure our orders won’t get messed up; it’s not like you’ll care because you’re getting something out of the deal, and that’s all that ever matters to you, ” I shout.
“Because you’ll take too long, and I have things to do!” she shouts back.
I like how she doesn’t reply to the second part of my statement. “Dude, Rita’s is RIGHT down the street; it’ll take what, 5 minutes? And it’s not my fault if there’s a line, or the employees are slow, or both! Come the fuck on!” I cry. “But whatever, man. I’ll text you what I want.” When I get back to the couch, I pick up my phone, open my texts, and ask for a small sundae with chocolate custard, hot fudge, Reese’s cups, and whipped cream and a cherry, even though I never eat the cherry. I start craving it immediately; ever since Rita’s started making sundae’s, it’s been my favorite ice cream parlor, and they aren’t stingy with their toppings! But it sucks they’re only open seasonally, and there isn’t one in the local mall.
She goes downstairs to switch her laundry, then leaves.
About 5 minutes after she leaves, my dad asks how long has it been since she left.
“Dude, it’s only been like, 5, 10 minutes!” I claim. I look at my phone. “I texted her at 7:42, and she read it at 7:59. It’s 8:06 now, you do the math,” I say, annoyed.
About 15 minutes later, my dad starts really complaining.
I look at the clock; 8:23. “I’m sure she’ll be back any minute,” I reassure him.
But I’m wrong; I hear her pull up at 8:43.
“‘Bout time!” He and I say in unison as I follow her into the kitchen.
“What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?” she snarls.
“You’ve been gone for literally 40, 45 minutes!” I state. “Rita’s is RIGHT down the street!”
I pull our orders out of the bag. “Oh my god! Our ice cream is all melty, man! What the fuck!” I angrily complain.
“I didn’t want Rita’s, so I went to Starbucks. Then I went to the Rita’s in Hamilton Square*, and didn’t take the highway to or from because it’s nice out. The Rita’s over there is in the ‘hood’, and is always fucking crowded.” She says as she points in the direction of our neighborhood Rita’s.
“‘Hood?’ Seriously, dude? It’s in the same neighborhood as us; does that make OUR neighborhood ‘hood?’ NO! And it’s the only Rita’s on this side of town, so of course it was going to be crowded! Actually, I bet the Rita’s you went to was crowded as well!” I argue. “And our ice cream is all melty; what the fuck, man! You never have any respect for anyone here! You got what you want, fuck everyone else!”
“Nope, only one person ahead of me! And oh well; it’s not my problem it’s melted,” she says with certainty.
“Are you fricken serious?! Of course it’s your problem; our ice cream is soup because you wanted to take a joy ride! And the whole reason you were asked to go out for this was because Dad needed something cold to help him feel better; it’s kinda pointless now since it’s not cold!” I shout, HOPING she’ll get it through her head (even though she never does).
“Whatever, I’m horrible, I can’t follow directions, I suck at life, yada yada yada,” She gripes as she stomps downstairs to get her clean laundry. “I’m leaving, don’t call or text me anymore tonight!”
My dad and I sit silently at the table eating our delicious treat. Cassie comes back up a moment later and continues to go up and into her room. When she comes back down to put her shoes on and leave, my dad starts teasing her, and I start laughing.
“UGHHHH!!” She screams. “SHUT UP!” The door slams.
My dad starts laughing with me as we talk out about how uptight she is, and how much calmer it’ll be when she finally, HOPEFULLY moves out in August. T – 4 months and counting…
A map of most of my town; see right for better? description.
*Across town. I think she meant the Mercerville one though (which is also across town) cos she said she didn’t take the highway to/from, and Starbucks and Mercerville Rita’s are on the same street which run parallel to the highway, which is also like, a block away from my house. Hamilton Square Rita’s, on the other hand, is like Point C on a triangle if my Rita’s was Point A andMercerville is Point B. Check out my lovely map; click it to see better.
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Another piece of work I’m proud of that also didn’t take long to think up!
This is a true story that happened last night.
It’s kind of a different take on the compare and contrast. Now, I don’t think I compared and contrasted perfectly, but I wanted to compare and contrast the different personalities in my household: my sister, Cassie, is uptight, whiney, curses every other word (I curse too, but only when necessary; my dad on the other hand says corny stuff, like “flip” instead of “fuck” XD), “perfect princess”, etc. etc., while my dad and I are pretty laid back and goofy, and he and I can agree to that. But, my dad is starting to senile older, always repeats himself, talks to us like we’re little kids/stupid/etc., etc., and my sister and I can agree with that. I’m lazy, disorganized, and the “family fuck up”. But I’m the one who’s always scolding others for not cleaning up after themselves and keep the common areas (kitchen, living room, bathroom) clean and organized, and the two of them can agree to that. I also call people “dude” and “man” a lot, especially my family. Kinda weird, especially to my dad, but whatever!
I thought it might sound a little weird if I did it in someone else’s point of view, like the cat’s, so I did it in my point of view. It was easier too. Is this the whole, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, person thing? That always confuses me =X And if so, what person is the cat’s view, and what person is my view (the way I wrote it in)? I want to say the answer for the latter is 1st, but what about the former? The internet isn’t helping me at all; it’s making me seem like I wrote in both 1st and 3rd, according this chart from Ms. (or Mr.) Keller’s webpage on Point of View from her/his website for her/his Language Arts students .. I only checked out the chart; I didn’t read the whole page, even though it seems pretty informative.
I almost always check out the sites that Writing 101 links in the assignments for guidance, but I almost never credit them; not sure why. But today I want to credit WritetoDone.com’s article, 10 Easy Ways to Improve Your Dialogue. While reading through the assignment (but before they mentioned this article), I started to stress about this very topic; I knew it would be most difficult thing about the assignment. But after reading it, I actually felt confident about writing this dialogue because I knew I wouldn’t have to think of some fancy shamancy words .. plus the fact that the fancy shamanciness is said to be distracting!
Since I gave props to 10 Easy Ways to Improve Your Dialogue, I guess I should mention the helpful article listed in the assignment: He Said, She Said: Dialog Tags and Using Them Effectively from Scribophile.com. Unfortunately, I’m somewhat easily distracted, and since this article was kind of long and wordy, I couldn’t get into it. Or maybe it’s because I just don’t really understand what the author means by all of it. But probably both. So as I was going through my work, I noticed that I did/n’t do some of the things this article mentioned, so I spruced it up a little more. Please, let me know what you would have done. After this assignment, I feel like I might a knack for dialogue, so I need to learn all that I can.
Damn, sprucing it up took me longer that actually writing it! But that’s okay, because practice is perfect, right?
Oh! I figured out who I’m going to write about for Assignment #6, but I’m not sure when I’ll write. If you want to know why I didn’t write it [yet], click here (or if your on my homepage, scroll down to the next post after you finish reading, liking, commenting, and sharing on this post =] =P).
After I post this entry, I’m going to write an entry that I’ll either post tonight or tomorrow during the day about what I was saying yesterday
about how I meant to do something on this blog this past weekend, but #1 didn’t do it and #2 don’t want to mention what it is until I do it. Well, I ended up doing it last night, so now I need to explain; I’ll do that in my next post.
Until then, have a nice night, and a happy hump day tomorrow ;P
Thoughts Gone Awry 