Warming Up :: Personal Narrative Papers

Warming UpWhy is it always so cold in here? I said, aiming my voice in the direction of my parents.Its exactly 68, was the invariable response from one of them. Thats room temperature. I couldnt understand why they kept the household so cold in the winter, 68 degrees during the day, 66 at night. Its more(prenominal) economical to keep the house at this temperature, my dad would tell me. How much money could it cost to heat the house a few degrees more?Even though I was sure our finances would non suffer if we used more heat, I never thought of my family as rich. Rather, by comparison my family with some of my friends families, I thought we were comparatively poor. We never had many luxuries even our house was spartan. A few years ago, my dad and stepmom bought a plot of gain in a new subdivision and designed a house. After it was built, it was obvious that we had the plainest house in the cul-de-sac. It was a one-story house with conservative beige railroad siding and absolute ly nonhing fancy to make it stand out. All the other houses had two stories or decorative rows of brickwork or beautiful gables on the roof. I knew that these kinds of decorations did not come cheap, and I thought that all our neighbors must be very rich to be able to build such fancy houses.If our house was not ornate, it was certainly well kept. My dad or I mowed the yard frequently so the grass wouldnt count on ragged. Neat flowerbeds encircled the house, giving it the proper, orderly look that convention demanded. Most adults I knew looked down on houses that did not meet this standard. Its too bad they couldnt fix that siding it would be a nice house otherwise, I would hear while passing a run-down home. Or someone else would say, Cant that family mow their lawn? Look how bad the neighborhood looks because of that one yard.My world was comely and tidy, organized and proper. I had spent all of my 16 years in the same town, raised with a standard of propriety. I knew, in an ab stract sense, that in that location was distress in the world. Even so, I thought my family was, if not poor, at least poorer than most families. But I rarely thought about poverty or living conditions at all.