A friend prompted me to tell him a story. Something from memory, so I told him. I decided to post this because I was surprised with what I came up with, probably because it seems so minute.
My family and I used to live in Ann Arbor. We only one car between us: a black Ford Escort, old but reliable. We didn't have a lot of money between us, having moved from China and fact that the Chinese Cultural Revolution took basically everything away from both my father and mother's side of the family. We lived in an apartment along Huron Parkway. Two bedrooms, one long, narrow hall. My dad went to Wayne for his second master's, and worked as well. Mom worked as a waitress. So it would be my mom, sister and me during the day. I don't remember a lot of what we did. Occasionally, Mom would take us on a walk down Washtenaw to a strip mall collectively known as Arborland. We'd almost always stop by the Toys "R" Us. It was like a palace to me, but we rarely bought anything. Once I remember she bought us chewing gum. It was multi-coloured and I think striped, with some sort of zebra character on the front. It lost its flavour quickly. There were coloured panels out front of the store as well. Stripes, just like the chewing gum. They covered the wall. Every time we went, to and from, I'd count those stripes. Mom never waited, so I'd really just be counting as fast as I could, running my fingers along each stripe. I got a different number each time.
sore/busy
excited
scared shitless
tired
cheerful