Creative Writing: Grounded To The Kitchen

Grounded to the kitchen
When you were a teenager, did you ever dream? Did you ever dream of washing the dishes for 10 people, 24/7, day in and day out for months on end? Fellow Toastmasters, don’t worry. It’s not too late. You too can be grounded to the kitchen for the rest of your life! Come back with me to my 13th year, and I’ll show you how it happened. As I spent my time stuck the kitchen, washing dishes when it was just a chore, before I actually got grounded, I had occasion to listen to a variety of voices around me, most of which contributed to my misery and came from my seven siblings or my Dad. It was a lovely Saturday morning in May. The balmy, Springish weather called to me from outside, but I was stuck in the kitchen washing dishes. Perhaps I could get outside, if I could just get the dishes done.

I want a cookie. I’m hu-u-ungry.” Whining emanated from somewhere below the range of my eyes. I looked down and seemed surprised to see a little girl looking like something the cat dragged in, long hair, too fine to contain , twisted fiercely into crooked braids with equally uneven bangs framing huge gray-blue eyes, eyes which could have asked for the moon and been granted it if a more compassionate individual had been on the receiving end of that wholly compelling gaze, dirt-smudged face, and hand-me-down clothes. Do you know what I said to this little girl? “This is not a twenty-four hour dinner.” “Get out of my kitchen.” The little girl cried and shuffled her feet, hanging her head. Then, I said: “Get thee hence,” and then “Damn!” I’m supposed to say that to Satan, not to my little