The Worst Mistake Of My Life

One warm summer morning my sister, dad, and I were sitting and watching T.V. and my best friend’s dad called and invited us over for the weekend. He said

I came home one day to see both of my parents sad. As a third grader, I didn’t completely understand at the time, but my father had been laid off from the job he’d had since his teenage years. My father had started at the age of eighteen as a student worker at Southern Miss, and after years of hard work he had been promoted to the manager of shipping and receiving on campus. When the recession struck, the need to save money resulted in his position being terminated. My father was without a job. My father loved that job and when he lost it, he changed. He found a new love, alcohol. He let his love for alcohol become an addiction. He would do anything for alcohol; he even had secret stashes when my mom had removed all the prior alcohol from the house. Quickly my father became a violent drunk and began to routinely beat my mother and me. He became unstoppable; no person could get him back on track so my mother, in an attempt to keep me safe, removed him from the house. Even my mother’s best efforts weren’t always enough, as my father constantly broke into our house. One day my mother and I came home and my father was waiting in our den with a gun. We walked in, he pointed the gun at us, and then back at himself. He couldn’t decide to kill my mother, himself, or just all of us. He had more hatred in his eyes

This morning I feel alone more than usual, by lunch time all I want is booze. I look over I see Joe bragging about his lunch to John and Tom. I just didn’t understand how they could be so happy, and why I could be so sad. Nothing they said cheered me or got my attention such as how the man Charles Lindbergh the man who flew cross country in record breaking time, somebody had kidnapped his son. After work, Robert, and a few others came to talk to me to see if I was alright. I gave them the fake “yes,” but I wasn’t I just wanted to drink booze and not wake up. It was a sucky moment to be in, and I was stuck in it.

The Saturday night party was the place to be. Anyone who is anyone was there. John’s curfew is midnight and its 12:05. Mark had been doing quite a lot of drinking and he was John’s ride home. John questioned whether or not he wanted to get in the car with Mark, but thought about how mad his parents were going to be. He was already five minutes late. Saying to himself “Just this one time,” he decided to get in the car. John never made it home that night. Mark had rolled the car off the bridge one mile away from his house. John lost his life all because he was afraid of getting grounded. There are many situations similar to John’s, and in a lot of them, no one survives. Because of all the death and tragedy as a result of driving under the

We knocked on the door of the off-campus apartment, as it opened we were confronted with the heavy stench of alcohol. A young girl was passed out on the living room floor, a pile of empty beer cans filled the kitchen sink, and the deafening music rattled the window panes. A group of girls managed to stumble past us. They waved goodbye to the host, who was handing drinks to me and my sister. It was not my first time drinking. In fact, everyone there was quite experienced – after all, it’s college. Half of the guests were completely drunk, and I had no problem with it. That is, until later that night when my sister locked herself in a room with a guy she had met only a week before. This prompted me to seriously consider the effects of

When it was midnight, we loaded the car and drove through Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee and Alabama. We stopped at a few places to grab food or gas. It was a long time, but it was worth it when we finally reached our condo. It was beautiful! We went to the balcony to see the ocean and it was crystal clear. The beach wasn’t crowded either. We hurried to put on bathing suits and sunscreen. Then we walked downstairs to the beach. The sand was warm and felt great. My sister’s and I ran to the water and

My favorite mistake was having curiosity, the curiosity to experience something for the first time. Curiosity is a beautiful thing that can do great things or do things that can change your life. I have done a lot of mistakes that were caused by my urge to see what would happen if… or I wonder…. This particular mistake was just one that you can never really forget ,but if you did something would remind you. My mistake was having the curiosity of riding a roller coaster.

What we eat and how we eat are imPortant both nutritionally and culturally. This selection suggests that how we get what we eat-through gathering and hunting versus agriculture, for example-has draThis seemspretty obvious.We all matic consequences. imagine what a struggle it must have been before the We developmentof agricu-lture. think of our ancestors spending their days searching for roots and berries to eat,or out at the crack of dawn, hunting wi.ld animals. isn't In fact, this was not quite the case.Nevertheless, it really better simply to go to the refrigerator, open the door, and reach for a container of milk to pour into a bowl of flaked grain for your regular

Drunk or not, my mind was still as bright as daylight, but every time I step down a street, I felt like I walking through hell. It's about ten to the midnight and the city was black as away except for the dim light from a hot dog stand on the corner to my left. The smell came from the stand was smooth and soft that I almost run for it. As I walked slowly across the street, through some puddles of water,"SPLASH!"to the stand where I met an old bum, who looked like the guy who got fired and had nothing to do but spends the rest of his life go around and get in other people's business which sort of like old Maurice or Ackley even. To tell you the truth, this stuff makes me feel sorry for him. He was about late sixty with lousy

The living room was colored a cinnamon Pop-Tart brown, the kitchen was painted bright red, was as small as a closet, and all throughout was old navy-blue carpeting. These are clashing colors I would come to ignore over the years. At first everything was okay, me and my younger sibling adjusted well enough. Our dad decided that seeing us wasn’t as important as other things in his life, so we attached ourselves to our mom. No matter what, her dark brown curly hair and perfume would always comfort us when we needed it, which turned out to be a lot more than we thought. After some time, packs of canned beer would find their way into the fridge every weekend. These were Tim’s, and they meant more to him with each passing year. Throughout the years we came to discover just how evil alcoholism is. Screaming, hatred, foul language and the smell of barley would fill the house almost every

I found “The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race” by Jared Diamond to be quite thought evoking. This article explains the “what ifs” of humans keeping the hunter-gatherer lifestyle to this day, and why Diamond believes that to have been the better option. While he goes on to make convincing arguments towards keeping the hunter-gatherer lifestyle, I commend him for also taking a professional approach in mentioning reasons why people would prefer the agricultural lifestyle we have today due to reasons such as “having to do less work, having more time for leisure and art, etc.”. David has set up a solid basis for arguing, which I believe to be quite beneficial in being able to see as many point of views as possible.

As a child, my life had always been hard. “Perhaps it’s better that way!” my pa would slur out whenever I complained. The sour, pungent, and sadly familiar smell of cheap liquor would hang between us. My father had drunk to forget. What did he want to forget? I always wondered. People claimed it was Ma’s

Just two short weeks before Christmas, my mom was driving me home from a lacrosse meeting at the Beaverton High School library. During the meeting, she had to step outside to take a phone call. I had thought nothing of it and just assumed she was being polite to the others in the meeting. The head coach walked up to me and told me he had high expectations for me this season as a varsity starter in my sophomore year. I was excitedly nervous for the upcoming season and could not wait to get to work. It was a chilly December night and I recall my mom had been unusually quiet on that drive home. We always listened to local radio stations on car rides to provide some background noise, but this car ride was different. The radio was off and the windows were up, the car was quieter than an empty school gym on a Saturday. I could tell something was wrong. “What 's wrong mom? Everything okay?” I asked. She looked over at me, the smell of donuts infiltrated my nose as we drove past sesame donuts, tears began to roll down her face as she said that the doctor had called her back and the results from her appointment had come in. “The doctors just diagnosed me with Pancreatitis and told me that if I don 't quit drinking, I’m going to die in two weeks”. My jaw dropped in disbelief, my mind went blank. I couldn 't think of a single word to say, let alone a sentence. The shock going through my body felt like I had been struck by lightning, I was left paralysed. The car ride home was silent

“You don’t worry about me babygirl! You just worry about finishing high school.” He said slowly. I hated the fact that he would never listen to me when I wanted to talk about something serious like his health. Later on that night I was awaken by a loud sound of pots and pans being tossed in the ground. I quickly rushed to the tip of the stairs only to discover my grandpa throwing a fit. We hated when he would get drunk because he always got angry about simple things, it’s like he doesn’t know how to control his temper. I walked down the stairs and stood at the last step, he rushed passed me cursing up a storm. He smelled of stale cigarettes and alcohol.

Never did I think a horrible mistake would positively impact my life this much. During my short 17 years of life, I have overcome many obstacles that have now shaped me to who I am today. One of the first obstacles life ever threw my way was the changing of schools multiple times. I transferred schools three times in my life, which made keeping friends rather difficult. I first transferred to a new school when I was going into the 5th grade. I found this challenging because I was at my former school from 18 months old till 10, so it was all I knew. I was scared to acquire new friends, which now I find was the silliest idea to be afraid of. Once I found my niche at this new school, I made a huge mistake in life that altered my path forever.