Essay #2
...s perfectly normal and healthy every night of the week while eating dinner. He wasn’t like what a stereotypical drunk was made out to be. He wasn’t tipsy, happy, or goofy. He was mean. He’d verbally abuse my whole family, and smash the house apart. My brother would hide away in his room for the weekend, only coming out to use the bathroom, and restock his food supply. I never wanted to be home, but instead hung out at my church or spent time alone in my room. Then it happened. My dad pushed my last button, so to say, and laid his hand on my mom. He shoved her into the kitchen wall and threatened her with a knife. I called the police and ran out of the house just making out the words of him saying he’d shoot the police once they arrived. He was taken away three hours later, surrounded by a S.W.A.T. team. A couple months later they were getting a divorce. My brother moved in with my dad in Seattle, and my mom and I moved into an apartment in Silverdale, while our beautiful house went up for sale. I had hit a new low. I went from a family income of about $5,000.00 a month to a new income of about $1,000.00 a month. This posed a big problem. I was going into Running Start at Olympic College and I had no money for supplies, books, or tuition. We barely had enough money for food let alone rent. My mom wasn’t able to pay for her car insurance or any other bills, and ended up needing to borrow money from our church. I was so embarrassed, and I realized how much I had taken for granted before all of this happened. Molly Irvins, in her essay “You Can’t Get By on Nickels and Dimes”, has explained that you really can’t get by on minimum wage, but my mom was going to do it. I quickly found out that everything added up really quickly, and th...