The Truth of the Matter
Blasting the Past
Pop here. A dearth of fresh new postings sends me back to the past to find something for you to stare at. This manuscript gives every appearance of being something Anna was forced to write for school, when she was perhaps 15 or 16.
THE TRUTH OF THE MATTER
Anna Truwe, period 6
My family is a notoriously messy bunch. We all tend to strew whatever project we're working on presently over all available horizontal surfaces. Parts get lost, stepped on or dragged by the kitties under the couch and not found for a week or so, by which time either the rest of the project is finished (or junked) or the missing piece is covered with cat spit and chewed beyond recognition. Ah, kitties!
More to the point, and as you may have guessed, most of our drawers are in complete disarray. The one most annoying and dangerous, until recently, was in the kitchen, right by the telephone. It had pencils, pens, paper clips and several boxes of toothpicks knit almost into one pointy mass. Smart people avoided it, others reached in for a pencil and became stuck. Even if they managed to wriggle free, there was still the problem of closing the drawer. Things were getting out of control!
Then, one fine winter/spring weekend, its reign of terror was ended. I was casting about for something to do, especially a way to earn some brownie points, when it came to me. I would conquer the drawer! I tagged along on a grocery run to Fred Meyer's and conned my mother into buying (hey, she got it messy, why should I pay?) a drawer organizer. When we returned home, I announced my intentions.
"You're a better man than I am," my father said, starting to dig up an oak sapling to transplant to his office.
The note of pessimism in his voice only made me more determined to go on. I pulled the drawer out, pulled a stool up, and poured a Diet Dr Pepper as I prepared to disentangle, sort and possibly discard items from the tangled web of the drawer.
Half an hour later, I'd removed all the brochures, receipts, pamphlets and instructions, giving some to those interested, recycling the rest. I pulled out the pens, putting the ones with ink in their own compartment, the ones without in the trash. Pencils I sharpened, erasers I just put in the divider. There's not much that can go wrong with erasers.
Then I took a nap.
I woke up, pulled the kitty off my face (she keeps trying to suck my breath so she can have the bed to herself), and went back down. O.K. Post-it notes here, plain pads there, now what? I looked at the mess of safety pins (mostly open), paper clips and toothpicks and wished I could quit. Then, it struck me. I could use a magnet! It doesn't seem like much now, but I bet if you were in that situation it would take you a bit to think of that, too. Anyway, I picked up a large magnet (being a twisted science type of family we have plenty of the kind that will give you a blood blister if you stick your finger between it and the fridge) and passed it over the collection of sharp metal bits and sharp wood bits. The pins and clips leaped to the magnet like stupid humans to the spaceship in "To Serve Man," except that I didn't intend to eat them.
It was a small task to separate the safety pins from the paper clips, and then I simply poured the toothpicks on the burn pile. I lifted the filled drawer organizer and carefully put it in (I probably should have made sure it fit before I started, but it fit anyway).
Then I took another nap.
That night, everybody looked at the drawer like it was Jim Morrison and Judge Crater climbing out of an underground bunker to get Slurpees at the Minute Market. I made the necessary threats to ensure the drawer's staying in its present condition, and made plans to attack the Band-Aid drawer in the bathroom next.
I couldn't get to sleep that night. It was probably the excitement of an impossible task completed, but it could also have been my nap-taking and the 12 or so sodas I drank. I listened to Highway 61 Revisited with my headphones until I dozed off, waking up at 5:30 the next morning with the cat on my head and my headphones inexplicably in the closet. Either I put them there in my sleep or backward masking words (.lap ruo si nataS .doog si nataS).
THE TRUTH OF THE MATTER
Anna Truwe, period 6
My family is a notoriously messy bunch. We all tend to strew whatever project we're working on presently over all available horizontal surfaces. Parts get lost, stepped on or dragged by the kitties under the couch and not found for a week or so, by which time either the rest of the project is finished (or junked) or the missing piece is covered with cat spit and chewed beyond recognition. Ah, kitties!
More to the point, and as you may have guessed, most of our drawers are in complete disarray. The one most annoying and dangerous, until recently, was in the kitchen, right by the telephone. It had pencils, pens, paper clips and several boxes of toothpicks knit almost into one pointy mass. Smart people avoided it, others reached in for a pencil and became stuck. Even if they managed to wriggle free, there was still the problem of closing the drawer. Things were getting out of control!
Then, one fine winter/spring weekend, its reign of terror was ended. I was casting about for something to do, especially a way to earn some brownie points, when it came to me. I would conquer the drawer! I tagged along on a grocery run to Fred Meyer's and conned my mother into buying (hey, she got it messy, why should I pay?) a drawer organizer. When we returned home, I announced my intentions.
"You're a better man than I am," my father said, starting to dig up an oak sapling to transplant to his office.
The note of pessimism in his voice only made me more determined to go on. I pulled the drawer out, pulled a stool up, and poured a Diet Dr Pepper as I prepared to disentangle, sort and possibly discard items from the tangled web of the drawer.
Half an hour later, I'd removed all the brochures, receipts, pamphlets and instructions, giving some to those interested, recycling the rest. I pulled out the pens, putting the ones with ink in their own compartment, the ones without in the trash. Pencils I sharpened, erasers I just put in the divider. There's not much that can go wrong with erasers.
Then I took a nap.
I woke up, pulled the kitty off my face (she keeps trying to suck my breath so she can have the bed to herself), and went back down. O.K. Post-it notes here, plain pads there, now what? I looked at the mess of safety pins (mostly open), paper clips and toothpicks and wished I could quit. Then, it struck me. I could use a magnet! It doesn't seem like much now, but I bet if you were in that situation it would take you a bit to think of that, too. Anyway, I picked up a large magnet (being a twisted science type of family we have plenty of the kind that will give you a blood blister if you stick your finger between it and the fridge) and passed it over the collection of sharp metal bits and sharp wood bits. The pins and clips leaped to the magnet like stupid humans to the spaceship in "To Serve Man," except that I didn't intend to eat them.
It was a small task to separate the safety pins from the paper clips, and then I simply poured the toothpicks on the burn pile. I lifted the filled drawer organizer and carefully put it in (I probably should have made sure it fit before I started, but it fit anyway).
Then I took another nap.
That night, everybody looked at the drawer like it was Jim Morrison and Judge Crater climbing out of an underground bunker to get Slurpees at the Minute Market. I made the necessary threats to ensure the drawer's staying in its present condition, and made plans to attack the Band-Aid drawer in the bathroom next.
I couldn't get to sleep that night. It was probably the excitement of an impossible task completed, but it could also have been my nap-taking and the 12 or so sodas I drank. I listened to Highway 61 Revisited with my headphones until I dozed off, waking up at 5:30 the next morning with the cat on my head and my headphones inexplicably in the closet. Either I put them there in my sleep or backward masking words (.lap ruo si nataS .doog si nataS).