Lesson #6/1

1. My father was quiet
Most households had a routine. Mine was no exception. Dad would come home after a double shift, mumble a hello to anyone that was home and head straight for the coffee pot. He'd make his cup then raise it to me in salute fashion, his way of showing thanks for having it ready. As he passed me on the way to the den, he'd kiss me on the cheek. I'd smile at his retreating form, sometimes you didn't need words!

2. She's always hostile
It always started the same. Momma would come tearing up the stairs, hollering at the top of her lungs when one of us kids forgot to do something or didn't do something. Hell I don't remember a day she wasn't cruel for one action or another. There was no calm before the storm when it came to mom. She just blew and would rant and rave for hours.

6. He was mean
Grandpop would come home from work everyday and the house would get the white glove test. If one finger of his precious white gloves came up gray all hell broke loose! He wasn't a nice guy. He'd throw the dust cloths at my grandmom and demand she redo it again and re-inspection would commence within a certain timed limit. He was the same cruel way about wrinkles in his dress shirts. Too many memories I have of him making my grandmom cower in the corner behind the ironing board for endless hours as he watched her press each wrinkle out.

9. The room was scary
I didn't want to open the door. I'd been in it before. It was the cellar to the old farmhouse we lived in. It was always cold, felt like a tomb. The floor was dirt, the shelves were rickety slats of wood and the walls were actual underground stone. The electric hadn't been updated down here so you had to go more than halfway in the crypt to pull the string for the light. I used a flashlight to light my way to the light pull but then the shadows from the flashlight's beam made me even more paranoid.

7. I hated school
I went to a private school and let me tell yah, this is one part of my life I wouldn't ever want to repeat. Being a child from a lower middle class family, I didn't fit in with the well to do kids. My uniforms and books were never brand new, they were hand me downs. My parents weren't doctors or lawyers, mom was a housewife and dad worked doubles at the steel mill to make ends meet and make sure I got this good education. I was ridiculed most of my years there because I didn't fit in, wasn't one of the popular ones. It made learning more difficult for me because I just didn't want to be there.

16. It was chaos
Folks, Murphy's law does happen. Today at the office was no exception. I always arrive early to prep my charts for the patients we will be seeing. Well, the internet link wasn't connected so I couldn't punch in. Now I had to justify what time I actually started. Then I hear a beep, and just like that the computers go down! Okay, now I get to check patients in by hand. The patients are getting antsy because hand check-ins take a lot more time and more hard copies are needed so their wait is longer. But wait, the copier jams! The assistants start taking patents back to exam rooms but charts aren't ready and everyone is mixing up who is in what exam room. Topsy-turvy is not the way this day was suppose to start.