Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Garage cleanup causes family fight

The two brothers worked diligently to clean up the one-door garage that was connected to their childhood home. They joked with each other, ribbing on how one brother's military issued haircut left him practically bald and the other about how his foray into puberty had begun with facial hair growing only on the left side of his face.

They worked fast, filling numerous garbage bags with old speakers, radios, newspapers, rusted garden tools, car parts,toys and various knickknacks. They were brutal in their attempt to clean up the garage and did not intend on salvaging anything. Rats had settled into the garage over the last winter and their father was too old and frail to take on the task himself so they had taken matters into their own hands.

An old man in his sixties with curly gray hair and a slow painful gait exited the front of the house and made a beeline for the boys. He became increasingly agitated as he saw what the boys were doing and picked up his pace finally bellowing out "Now sons, what are you doing here? I need all this stuff." He bent down slowly and started trying to empty out the garbage bags and return the hodgepodge items back into the garage.

Already anticipating their father's outrage the eldest son said "Dad, you don't need any of this crap, we're trying to clean it out, for your health, it's full of junk and so is the house, we are trying to help." The father continued to struggle to empty out the bags. In between breaths he huffed out " This isn't junk, I'm saving these speakers for your wedding party, these papers here are from the 40's, I can't get rid of them." The youngest son snapped " Dad! You're a hoarder, this is all junk and we can't even walk around in here, who know's whats living in here!"  The father stuttered in shock at his child's outburst  before continuing to make up excuses as to why he needed every single thing in the garage.

The two brothers gave up, setting down the items in their hands. They had been through this before and they knew there was nothing they could do to stop their father. He was too attached to everything in the house because he had bought it with their mother right before she died. They walked out leaving their old man to his possessions and went their separate ways.

12 comments:

  1. Very well-written and great headline! There are a few spots that you forgot to use commas that I noticed but overall, I think you did a great job with this story.

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  2. I agree with Jena. Great job on the writing. It made me feel like I was there watching that man get upset about his family getting rid of his things.

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  3. This seems like one of the moments you see on the hoarder shows on TV. You were very descriptive. The only thing I noticed was that you wrote "who know's whats living in here" but I'm sure that was just a typing error. Good story!

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  4. Love, love, love the headline! It is descriptive and informative and includes a great verb! There are a few minor tweaks I might make with comma and word placement in a couple of sentences, but this was very well written over all. Nice job!

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  5. I love your descriptive words! The one that stood out to me was "hodgepodge", that's brilliant. This is such a great piece of writing!

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  6. I really like your headline! I thought you added great detail to your story. There were a few grammatical errors, but those can be easily fixed. Great job overall!

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  7. It is a very great story, and your writing is great. It is really hard to me to make some changes. I just find some punctuation problems. Nice job!

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  8. I think this is one of the best headlines we've had on here as a class! I, like Megan, really enjoyed some of your descriptive words, they made the story more interesting and life like, for instance, knickknacks, hodgepodge etc. Good job Farai! This is a great piece.

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  9. Very descriptive! I love the use of "hodgepodge" I really like using silly words that sound made up.

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  10. I loved this story since I've recently witnessed that kind of situation and find it interesting. You also remembered to make a headline and not a title. Well done.

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  11. Aw this story broke my heart. I know what a struggle it can be to convince someone to let go, it's not easy.

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  12. The headline draws the reader in and the story is very descriptive and well written. well done. I liked it.

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