Alvarez 1

Amy Alvarez
David Thacker
ENC 1101
23 September 2014
Lonely or Only?
Pet Peeve
One of my biggest pet peeves in life is being an only child. Everyone always has
that idea in their head that only children are spoiled brats. I absolutely hate that
connotation. Yes, given that there are quite a few of them that are beyond spoiled, but
not all of them are that way. I know plenty of people with siblings that are more spoiled
than only children. Whenever this subject comes up in conversation everyone always
says that I am so lucky to be an only child and that they are so jealous of me. Its actually
the reverse in my opinion, I dont like being an only child, and I would love to have
siblings. Dont get me wrong, on occasion it is super nice to be an only child but in the
long run its not all its cracked up to be. Being an only child doesnt mean you get
everything you want, if that were true I would be driving the new 2014 Ferrari in the
color Rosso Corsa around campus. I didnt have everything just handed to me. When I
was growing up my parents wanted to teach me the value of money and that I had to
work for things. Even when I had saved enough money to buy the new Nintendo DS I
had been eyeing for months my parents wouldnt let me buy it right away, even though it
was my money.
When I was younger, I used to say I was a lonely child instead of an only
child. When you think about it that is the truth. When you are growing up sure you

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have plenty of friends but its not like they live with you, its not like they are around you
24/7. Just think about it for a second and imagine growing up with just you and your
parents. There is no one there for you to tease/pick on, no one to play games with, no one
for immediate advice that you dont want to ask your parents about, and there is no one to
blame things on, other than yourself. Not only that but many years from now when my
parents pass away I will have no immediate family left, it will just be me, myself, and I.
Sure I will have my aunts and uncles and such, but it isnt the same as having someone
you grew up with every day. I have always imagined how life would have been if I had
any brothers or sisters. With eighteen years of pondering this, I have come up with the
conclusion that I would love to have an older brother. If I had an older brother I would
have grown up much differently I think. I hated wearing dresses and or skirts and I
would rather be outside fishing than inside playing with Barbies. Barbies never really
appealed to as a substitute I would play with stuffed animals and push them around in
little cars.
When I was younger I was more of a tomboy, I was always outside, whether it be
riding my bike, kicking a soccer ball, or playing baseball. With a brother, I would have
had someone to play those things with me instead of just the side of my house and I or
my neighbor and I.
The Big Catch
Being such a tomboy gave me more chances to hang out with my dad. Every year
I would compete in the Lakewood Ranch Fishing Tournament. This is something my dad
and I did together. The pond where the event is held is within walking distance from my
house, so my dad and I would just walk over with fishing poles in hand and tackle box in

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the other. Saturday, February 27, 2010 was by far the best year of the contest. I
remember waking up bright an early as the sun crept through my window. I couldnt
help but think to myself that maybe this year could be the year I take home the gold.
Excitement running through my body I jolted out of bed to go eat breakfast. The aroma
of cinnamon raisin French toast and syrup filled the room. I stuffed myself full, as I had
a long anxious day ahead of me. After breakfast I threw on some jeans, laced up my
converses, popped my sweatshirt over my head, and placed my lucky camouflage hat on
my head and out the door I went. I arrived shortly after, the walk only being about 5
minutes. Even with arriving early the pond was already crowded with other contestants.
After I checked in my dad and I scoped out the best fishing location and set up
our equipment and then we waited. At 9:00 A.M. sharp the sound of the horn went off,
meaning game on. The first cast of the line was out; now it was time to wait. It wasnt
long before I felt the tap tap on the line, signaling that there was a fish. I got into position
and as soon as I felt the bass take the bait I whipped the pole back to set the hook. My
dad always said that setting the hook was the most important part, and he was right. I
was able to set the hook and now it was time for the fight. Reeling in with all my might I
could feel the bass trying to go against me swimming left to right, left to right. My dad
was cheering on the sidelines, giving me pointers such as keep the tip of the pole up
and you almost have him. With a splash I reeled him out. I yelled: I caught one! I
caught one! and the man with the measuring stick came running. The man laid the bass
down against the measuring stick and measured it to be a whopping 19 inches. He wrote
the measurements down on my nametag; which was hanging from a lanyard around my
neck. To start off the day with catching a fish so quickly, built my enthusiasm and ready

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myself for the next catch. The day wasnt over yet; I still had plenty of time to keep
fishing, so I did. That day I caught three fish, but the first being my largest. It was now
lunch time and time for the awards. The way the awards work is based on age groups
and everyone gets a prize. This year however my prize was the trophy. The trophy was
tall and shiny. Once they had the winners up on the platform each winner got a tackle
box randomly selected and one of them contained a prize. The announcer counted up to
3 and on 3 everyone opened their tackle boxes. I looked in mine and I saw a yellow
paper, but it didnt register to me that that meant that I won. I heard my dad from the
crowd yell YOU WON! I looked more intently inside and pulled out the paper, I had
won a fishing trip! I was so in shock that I was speechless. I couldnt wait to go on it
and have a new fishing adventure with my dad.
Unlikely Friendship
Growing up being the only child basically meant that I had no choice but to
become close with my parents. To some people that might sound terrible, but in my eyes
it is one of the best things that could happen. My mom and I are super close with each
other. I think one of the reasons we became so close is because she is a teacher and has
worked at the same school I went to all the way through kindergarten to eighth grade.
Every day I started my day by getting ready with her and driving to school and ending the
day with her putting me to bed. There was never a time that we were apart, just because
we had such similar schedules. Having my mom at the school I went to had some perks.
The main perk was just having her available to me incase I needed something.
When I was in fourth grade, my mom and I had just done laundry the night before
and the clothes were really static. In the morning I had grabbed a sweatshirt from the

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laundry we had folded last night, and I wore it to school. I was sitting in class and I felt
something under my sweatshirt and it felt kind of static so I reached under to pull it out,
and it was my moms underwear. I didnt know what to do so I hid it back under my
sweatshirt and asked the teacher to go see my mom so I went and told her what happened
and gave her, her underwear. We were laughing so hard. That is one thing my mom and
I do best, is just laugh about things uncontrollably.
We have so many inside jokes. When we are in the car together and a good song
comes on we sing and dance to it. My favorite is when we sing to the people in other
cars that pass us and see if they notice or not. Sure enough there have been a few times
where people do a double take. On the way up to Tallahassee for the fall term my mom
and I rode in my car and my dad took the van. During the trip up we decided to film a
video of us singing. We were trying to be like all those popular videos on YouTube with
the people in the car lip-syncing to different songs. The song we choose was Iggy
Azaleas Black Widow. My mom had set it up so that we were able to prop my phone
up to film. As soon as she hit record and the song started playing I couldnt keep a
straight face it was so funny. We finally pulled it together and I did the rap part and my
mom did the singing part. The whole time my mom was dancing to the beat; but her
version of dancing was moving her finger around to the beat. Later that night we
watched what we had recorded and it was hilarious.
Other memories I have with her include random dance offs at midnight, which is
usually us trying to twerk and failing miserably, and just laughing at each other or
making random videos. My parents and I went to go see the movie World War Z, with
Brad Pitt and we found it funny more than anything. The zombies just acted weird and it

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was entertaining. That same night my mom and I were making fun of it so I whipped out
my iPod and started filming her reenacting the zombies and the parts we found funny.
During one of the scenes my mom actually fell by accident and we started cracking up.
After I shot some clips I edited them into a short one-minute movie. My mom is one of
my best friends and I can literally tell her anything, so expectedly we have the most
random bizarre conversations.
Panama Trip
During the summer of 2012 my family and I took a last minute trip to Panama
City, Panama. I had only been to Panama once before back in 2010 to visit my abeulo for
a vacation. The trip in 2010 had been super fun. We visited the Panama Canal, went and
saw some Indians and how they lived, and I got to spend time with my abuelo.
The trip of 2012 was a bit different. My abuelo was really sick and diagnosed
with stage 4 of intestinal cancer. My mom is really close with her dad, so of course she
wanted to go see him and take care of him, therefore, off we went. When in Panama we
stayed in my abuelos apartment for a week, which wasnt much fun. My abuelo had his
own little bookstore that was part of the church he went to that was named after me,
Amy Victoria. In the bookstore he sold books, little candies and his CDs. He had
about 3 CDs that he made of him singing and I own all of them. He had a lovely voice
and on my birthday he would always call me and sing happy birthday to me, I would look
forward to it every year.
He didnt have a lot of money and he lived in this rinky-dink apartment. It had
one bedroom, a tiny bathroom, a kitchen and somewhat living room. As a whole, the
apartment was maybe as big as two and a half dorm rooms put together. My mom and I

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slept in the bedroom and my dad slept on the couch for the week. Living in Panama is a
lot different from living in the US. Not everyone can afford cars so most people take a
cab or walk to their destination. The streets are dirty, loud, and not even really roads.
The whole trip we were there, my abuelo was in the hospital. The hospital he was
in was terrible and nothing like what we are fortunate to have here. There were about 6
people in a room and only thin curtains for privacy, which were usually open. The
doctors and nurses were all students from the local college, therefore they werent as
experienced as doctors her in the US. During his stay at the hospital 2 people died right
in front of him. When someone died, the nurse would come in and notice and just cover
the body with white sheets and sometimes leave them there for a few hours before they
took them out of the room.
We visited him everyday in the hospital and not a single day he was there did he
not have a smile on his face. Ever since I was a little kid, my abuelo and I would make
weird faces at each other. While he was in the hospital that was one thing we continued
to do to with each other and it would always make him laugh. We also had many inside
jokes such as, chocolate soup, knock knock jokes, and candy corn. The way the candy
corn inside joke came about was when he was visiting me in Florida. We had gone to
target to pick up a few things and it was around Halloween time and I kept saying I
wanted candy corn. My mom kept telling me no so my abuelo and I just started singing
about candy corn. One of my favorite knock knock jokes that he used to say was:
Knock Knock
Whose there?
Lola

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Lola Who?
Lola Drones
The knock knock joke at the end sounds like los ladrones, which in Spanish means the
burglars. Meaning that the burglars were knocking on the door.
One memory that sticks out was from when he came to visit me when I was
younger. I had some of that Crayola air-dry clay and we started to make things with it.
We made a heart that was pink and orange and he stuck it on his forehead being silly.
The other day before I came to Tallahassee I was digging through an old box and I found
the heart that we made. Finding that heart reminded me of all the memories we had
shared together. When I found it I actually cried a little, because I wasnt expecting to
find it.
The week there went by quick. My dad and I left and went back home while my
mom stayed with him an extra week. That week he was transferred to another hospital
that specialized in the study of cancer. A week had been up and my mom finally came
home. A few days after she was home she got a call around 10 oclock at night saying
that he had passed away. I was not super close with him, however my mom was. He was
like her best friend and he was the first person she would go to for everything. Part of the
reason I wasnt super close with him, was because he lived so far away and I only got to
see him once every few years. Even though I wasnt too close with him, there isnt a day
that goes by that I dont think about him. He was such a great person and I always had
lots of fun with him when we were able to see each other.
The Hawks

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It is really nice being able to be real buddy buddy with your parents and all, but it
doesnt help them be less strict. As I was growing up, since I was the only child my
parents were always strict with me. They would watch over me like a hawk, because
they feared something bad would happen to me every second if they werent watching. If
I went outside to ride my bike around the cul de sac there was either my mom or dad at
the end of the driveway being the hawk that they were. Finally as I became a little older
around the age of 10 they upgraded and they let me play outside with out supervision
except I had to carry a walkie talkie around with me to keep in contact with them incase
something did happen.
The best is when you want to go have fun with some friends or you just want to
go do something by yourself. They always come up with the most ridiculous excuses for
not letting me go. We have some trails near my house and I would always want to go
take a walk or ride my bike through them. The excuse that I heard multiple times was
are you crazy? You cant do that, there are crazy people in the world, someone could be
hiding back there to abduct you! Who even thinks of that, I mean come on, really?
All of my friends have at least one or two siblings so their parents arent as strict
as mine are. Whenever I try to explain to them why I cant go hang out with them they
always look at me like my parents are crazy. The reason for this is because their parents
dont come up with all these ridiculous scenarios because they assume everything will be
fine. I did miss out on a few neat opportunities because of this. When my friends got
cars and where able to drive me places my parents wouldnt let them drive me right away
I had to wait a few months because they were new drivers. In a sense I totally understand

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that, but then my parents would have to go out of their way to take me somewhere, so it
didnt seem very logical.
Equal Adult?
I always was with adults, it being my parents, or other adults such as family
members. This has made an impact on the way I have matured. Obviously when I was
really young they talked to me like I was a kid, but it gradually started to change and
started to sound more adult like quickly. In adult situations this comes in handy because
I am used to conversing with adults and I was raised to be polite with everyone, even
people I didnt know.
Whenever we needed to call the store to see if they were in stock of an item or
where to find it my parents always made me call instead of them. They said that I needed
to practice talking to people because it would help me later on in life. I used to hate that
as a kid it is just uncomfortable to call or confront a totally stranger to ask them a
question. In the end though they were right, confronting people I dont know for help is
something I do almost daily, whether its for directions, or something simple.
Also, when growing up they always taught me right from wrong and whether
something was a bad idea. This has turned me into more of the mother of my group of
friends. I do know how to have fun, but when something sounds a little to crazy or
dangerous my motherly side usually steps in to say something before we all do something
stupid.