High School Personal Narrative!

Hey Everyone!

I was hoping to get some opinions on my English paper before turning it in tomorrow (Friday) night at 8:00 EST. I know I'm having some problems with syntax, and I'm 'telling' and not 'showing.' Any advice for omissions, re-working, word choice, etc. would be appreciated! Also, any advice for shaving down erroneous wording and sentences? THANKS!
-Aspiring Writer 9

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THE CUCUMBER

For many families, scandal is inevitable. For mine, it was the result of a cucumber.

My Aunt Donna looks like a 50 year-old version of Anna Wintour with a stick-thin body, short black bob, sharp facial features, and a pencil-thin smile. When she speaks, you listen, when she asks you to do something, you do it, and whatever she says in final. Although she usually is right, it is a law of nature that you do not challenge Aunt Donna's opinion, as she is the most stubborn person on the face of the earth. I've always been fascinated by Aunt Donna's emotional complexity and her ability to throw a raging fit and engage in a tender loving moment within a few short minutes of each other. Perhaps most mystifying about my Aunt Donna, however, is something I've tried for years to talk with her about. My Aunt Donna absolutely loathes cucumbers.

Maybe the eerie look of dark waxen green flesh, or the long, fat unparallel shape intimidates my Aunt Donna, but since her birth, Donna Jones would not touch a cucumber. The smell or sight of cucumber would initiate long, breathy gags, and I remember Aunt Donna describing a cucumber as the devil?-in vegetable form.

The weirdest part of my Aunt's hatred of cucumbers was the fact that she'd never actually tasted one. It was as if my Aunt was genetically coded to hate cucumbers since birth. She banned us from bringing cucumbers to her house, and her blood would boil and her flesh would crawl if anyone mentioned or, god forbid, actually ate a cucumber in her prescence.

When I was nine and Aunt Donna was visiting my house, knowing full well how she felt about them, I asked if she wanted to enjoy some juicy cucumber with me. The response to my question was one of the scarring moments of my childhood. She stared into my eyes and I could see a flicker of flame in hers. It seemed Aunt Donna had been possessed by evil as she responded in an arctic cold voice, "Jonathan Bates, I will not have your cucumber. Cucumbers are the most digusting, vile, things on earth. I would rather eat rotting squirrel flesh.» And then, like it had never happened, we continued our game of Uno. After the incident, as I lay in bed, I made it a life goal to watch my Aunt Donna not just touch, but eat, a cucumber.

The Jones Family Christmas Eve has always been the epitome of a big fat Italian gathering. The elaborate, traditional food spread could feed a small nation -cheese puffs, smelts, bulls, crabs, mussels, clams, cookies, pies, marzipans, mashed potatoes, pasta, barley, pizza, wine, and Godiva are all spread over a gargantuan counter in my Aunt's sacred kitchen year after year. But, out of all the selection, one item is always the crown jewel of Christmas Eve. The fruit bar.

Perhaps least traditionally?-and fatty, is our family's very own Christmas creation, the Jones family fruit bars. Started by my Great Grandmother, these slices of icily juicy fruit are prepared only on Christmas Eve by finely chopping every and any fruit in the kitchen- cherries, grapes, blueberries, blackberries, strawberries. watermelon, banana, apple, and cranberry, and then freezing the fruit for an hour before serving piled under coolwhip. It is hard to describe the taste of a fruit bar. Perfected through years of Christmas creation and sampling, they are sweet, sour, and just cold enough to send a slight chill down the spine. Each Christmas, the preparer of the fruit bars is alternated between my Mom and her four sisters, and in 2003, the torch was again passed to my Mom. Little did she know, I had special plans to make our Family Christmas 2003 Fruit Bar extra special thanks a new ingredient, the cucumber.

Preparing the fruit bars was something my Mom always enjoyed. She'd get up early Christmas Eve morning, crank up Brenda Lee's «Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree» and mince twenty different fruits until they were ready for freezing. My sister and I would wake up to the smell of a tropical fruit oasis and get downstairs quick enough to sample the raw fruit before freezing. But this time, I wanted to be a part of the fruit bar creation, it was my only chance for sabotage. While my Mom hummed «You'll be singing let's be jolly, deck the halls with bows of Holly,» I stood, silent, in the bathroom, mincing cucumber with a knife stolen from the kitchen the night before. Carefully, I transferred the chopped vegetable into zip-loc bags and hid them in my bathrobe. I then ran into the kitchen with excitement and helped my Mom mix and dice until she had to go to the bathroom. Moving quickly, I emptied three bags of cucumber into the fruit bars and mixed them around ferverently. The deep red raspberry juice immediately dyed the cucumber, making it look like part of a strawberry. Triumphantly, I sauntered back upstairs and tried to imagine the look on my Aunt's face when she tasted the new and improved fruit bars this year.

Christmas Eve night was magical. The small, predominantly Italian town of Pitowski, Indiana seemed to glitter, filled with happy cheer and framed into a perfect picture of Christmas by bright, full snowflakes, and shiny christmas decorations. Presents were exchanged, money was bet, wine was drunk, and food was eaten. After everyone settled in the den to watch A Christmas Story, my Mom uncovered the fruit bars, and everyone dug in. I held my breath while Aunt Donna chewed her first bite, studying her face and trying to mask my victorious triumph. Fireworks shot into the sky. Heaven parted and Angels serenaded me with glorious music. My plan had worked, and in my Aunt's mouth was the vegetable no one could talk her into eating for fifty years. At first, the way her muscles twitched, I thought she was having an allergic reaction. But then she began to eat with more voracity, shoveling in fruit bruit bars and chewing with ferver as if a highly addictive drug had been mixed with the fruit. In between bites, with bits of fruit dangling on her left lip, she said with paroxysmal excitement, «Dear Lord, Jane. What did you put in this year?!» My Mom was slighty amused, enjoying the scene of her usually prim and uptight sister immersed in the fruit salad, «Oh, you know, the usual. Though Jonathan did help out for the first time…» She proudly glanced at me and Aunt Mary smiled at me, bigger than I'd ever seen before, «Well, Jonathan, I vote that you make these yourself every year!»

I was thrilled. My Aunt Donna had not only tasted a cucumber, she had loved it. As she continued emptying trays of the fruit bars, I looked out the window and watched snowflakes criss-cross their way down to the ground. I knew a wickedly delicious smile was plastered on my face, because this Christmas, I had most definitely been naughty.