Desirae King
“Tsk Task” “Stomp, stomp, stomp.” The sound of my boots hitting the ground to release the snow was more irritable than ever to my cold ears. When I walked into work, the smell of chili dogs and tater tots lingered in my frozen nose. “Desirae, fetch me a gallon of orange juice in the back will ya?!” yelled my supervisor, Dennis, impatiently while stirring a pot of saucy chili. I praised his command and started work. “I am hungry!” “Desirae!” “Can I have this and this and this?” whined the ‘starving’ children. I finally finished rinsing the bubbly soap off of my hands and started serving cheap food and burnt tater tots to these little rascals. Oh, the wonderful joys of being a volunteer at a place where youth can come in and get food and parents can get babysitters, for free. After all the kids were well fed and nourished, I kicked back for a temporary second and enjoyed the glaring lights from the beautiful Christmas tree and watched the snow fall peacefully onto the freshly plowed sidewalk. Within a minute of my relaxing encounter, what seemed so happy children were not so happy anymore. They were angrier than ever. Kid’s crying, calling names, bickering and fighting. As I made my way over, Bailey grasps my arm and jumps on my back, dragging me over to the air hockey table so I could play with her. “Hold on Bailey, I need to help solve a problem,” I explained, but she would not let go.
“Please come play with me? None of the other kids will and I am all alone.”
“I promise I will come back, okay?”
It felt like these kids never stopped and the existence of today was already feeling overwhelming and the day had just begun.
“What is going on here? Why is Rebecca crying? Is everything okay?” I asked the group of fighting girls.
“She stole my boyfrie…”
“Not-uh! You guys weren’t even together!”
“Well that doesn’t mean you have to push MY friend!”
“Okay, okay! Sit down you guys, that is enough. Let’s work through this the correct way” I encouraged.
Dealing with elementary girl drama was not exactly on my to-do list when I came into work today but I tried my best to make an effort. Finally, slowly but surely, the problem was resolved with carefully worded information that I pulled out of nowhere. I had no clue what I was talking about, or how to address the situation, but the morally correct information I gave them had them hugging and laughing in no time. This made me think a little bit about my own situations of struggle in different areas. If I can solve other’s problems, I can surely solve my ow.. “Desirae, will you help me hook up the super Nintendo so I can play Super Mario 3?” Cody asked, cutting off my important thought process.
“Sorry Cody, I promised Bailey I would play air hockey with her. Can you ask Curtis to help you?” I sadly responded, forgetting that I am the only one who does anything around this dreadful place. I continued to my promise I had made to Bailey, and played a quick game of air hockey with her. Exactly thirty seconds after I was done, my supervisor yelled from across the room, “kids, time for story time!” This meant I had to clean the whole place and prepare dessert for all of the kids. I did a head
