I had been unable to go to writer’s club for over a month, and I miss it! Last week, we met and I started an interesting story… although I’m not completely happy with it. Enjoy! Any guesses at the dad's profession?
The world never saw a better dad. He was the adventurous kind, the dad that knew better than to be old and boring. My dad would wake up early in the morning, whistling the same tune, drinking the same coffee, and he’d put on the same dusty, tan hat. That was the only thing normal about him, though. I remember his smell mostly; musty, sweaty, because of the heat. But his smell was in a handsome and heroic sort of way, not the ‘I never take a shower’ way. He was the kind of dad that created stories I’d long to be a part of. Each morning, I would hear him whistling in the kitchen, and I’d sneak down the creaking stairs just to see him map out his day. His tall body would be hunched over a map of the area, and he’d be sipping his coffee one moment, and sharpening his knife blade the next. Sometimes, my dad would catch me hiding behind the wooden bookshelf. Without looking away from his map, he’d smile and say, “Well, I’m glad my side-kick is awake. I’d be lost without her.” The times that I spent with my dad were priceless. Our life was play, and that’s how I want to remember my dad.
My mother would paint the picture of our life a bit differently. You see, she was always the one that worried when we were off on our adventures. She doesn’t know this, but sometimes I’d walk into the kitchen after a day out with dad, and I notice that she was crying. She’d blame it on the heat, or the onions she was cutting, but I knew that wasn’t true. Dad would never talk about our adventures with mom. I sometimes did, but Mom would just smile and listen. I always thought she was too strict. She never wanted me to have fun. That’s how I remember my mother.
This was my life. At the age of 11, my dad was my superman. My whole life had been wrapped up in him. You see, something you have to understand is that in our games, my dad was always the winner, the hero, the good guy. I was his side-kick, or “super-secret agent,” he’d like to call me. We were fighting bad guys and hiding from pirates. And if it was a good day of exploring, we’d even find treasure. It didn’t always seem like treasure to me, but when I found something I really loved, my dad would always let me keep it. My dad always gave me his best.
I played the game with my dad my whole childhood. But, the September before my 12th birthday, everything changed.
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Every year, there is a Winter Ball that foreigners attend to raise money for local orphanages and charities. This year's theme was 1930's Hollywood. The marketing department in our school pays for a certain amount of staff members to attend this event each year. We were one of the lucky ones! A ticket costs 400 RMB per person, which is over $60 US dollars. That’s a lot of RMB for us, so we are glad the tickets were free!
