Humerus Essays

I love humerus essays, it is one of my favorite ganras of writing. so when Mrs. Gaboury has assigned us to write something i tried it out so here is the first one i wrote. please comment and give me feed back and suggestions. note i copied and pasted from word document and there may be some problems.

The Great Napkin War

For the last five to six years now my mother has attempted to "civilize" my siblings and me. So in between my brothers yelling of "your mom" and "I'm going to punch you in the face!" my mom will tell us to put our napkin's in our laps. And for the last five or six years my siblings and I have been coming up with every argument we can come up with to fight our mothers stand on manners and more specifically her stand on the napkin in the lap instead of on the table and by the hands where it is of actual use. So every dinner from then on was another battle in The Great Napkin Wars.
During The Great Napkin Wars dinner time would go something like this: my mom would say to me "Matt can you go get your siblings for dinner" I would proceed to take about five steps out of the kitchen and scream "Sam, Katy, Melissa! Dinner!" They would respond with one of the following, "Coming!" or "Just a sec'" or "Be there in a minute!" So about five to ten minutes later my siblings will come slowly down the stairs or come crawling up from the basement. It would be five or so minutes into the meal when my mom would turn to one of us (usually Sam or me I guess she's just sexist like that) and say "Ahem, aren't you forgetting something?" Sam and me being the smart mouths that we are would reply in the most falsely innocent voice we could manage would say something along the lines of "No, whatever do you mean mother?" then she would give us that look that says ha ha that's cute now shut up then she would hold up her napkin and of course our sisters would come to our aid and the arguments would begin:

Siblings: What's the point of putting napkins in your lap?
Mom: It's polite.

Siblings: It's pointless.

Mom: When you grow up people will wonder who raised such poorly mannered, uncivilized, rude, barbarians.

Siblings: Yah because people will totally ignore our intelligence, generally pleasant personalities, and interesting input to conversation and see us as barbarians just because we don't have napkins in our laps. And it they ask us who raised us we will totally deny any affiliation with you.

Mom: But what if you're on a date don't you want your girlfriend to think you're a gentleman? Siblings: I don't want to be a relationship with someone who would judge me solely on weather I put a napkin in my lap.

The argument normally goes on for about seven minutes until my sisters and I usually give up. We figure it's not that big of a deal and that you should probably not get the person that pays your allowance too angry. Unfortunately my brother Sam, who believes that "Shut up!" and "Go eat yourself!" is a great argument by anyone's standards, does not share this view. He will continue to fight using the same arguments as long as he can go before Mom threatens to take away allowance or computer privileges.
Now don't get me wrong I love my mom. She makes homemade dinners all the time, she gives me a large allowance, and she makes cookies practically on demand. But sometimes she is a little bit hypercritical. Recently she has tried to become an environmentalist. My mom will take canvas bags to the grocery store so she doesn't have to use plastic ones and yells at us if we accidentally leave the lights on (by we I mean Sam who will go into two to three other peoples rooms in the morning for reasons unknown to me and leave the lights on in every single one of them). This is all fine except for the fact that my mom will leave her TV on (rarely), leave her lights on (occasionally), and leave the stove or oven on (frequently). Now this does relate to the Great Napkin Wars for the napkin that my mother forcibly places upon my lap goes to little use and with our sisters at college I needed a new argument to use on my mother. I tend to grab another paper napkin from the holder and put it to its actual use, the cleaning and de-greasing of hands. So at the end of the meal two napkins are thrown away only one of which is actually used. Those several extra napkins every night will add up, in just my family by not wasting those napkins can save three trees a year and enough electricity to run our house for hours (those statistics are completely made up but I assume that they can't be that far off).
It has been about five years since the beginning of the Great Napkin Wars. The side of the McFadden children has lost two of its soldiers to colleges but the two remaining have refined the arguments that first started this epic battle to nigh perfection. There is still no end in sight to the Great Napkin War with Mom being convinced that she is right and that this is for our own good and Sam still being in the obnoxious, stubborn teenager phase, which doesn't look like it will ever end. As for me well I still never put my napkin in my lap without being told, and neither do I fight as much as I used to. I just remind my mother how wrong she is and then I do what she wants. My mom still insist that this is going to ruin my future but I still don't see a problem in it as long as I don't fall in love with someone who is incredibly shallow, who only likes me for my amazing hair, and who, like my mother, believes that the napkin should go in the lap.