When I was small, still small as a puppy, at times I got scared. When my mom would go shopping for food and I would go with her, most of the time food shopping was fine. Until one day in the mid-summer of 1998 when we came home. To most people, home was like home- sweet- home, but to me on that one day, it was a nightmare.
The garage door on my brick house was white as fresh concrete on the sidewalk in a busy city. Even in the day the garage was a very creepy place, but especially on the day I got trapped in there. It was right after grocery shopping when all of the food was emptied out of the car. I needed to go back into that old creepy garage. While I was getting what I needed from the garage, I heard a loud slam from the door. Then I was trapped in the garage. That was how that horrible memory startled exactly twelve years ago.

As usual as soon as we got home, mom would make everybody help put food away. The car was stacked with grocery bags tall as Mount Everest. Slowly I carried a bag filled with chocolate chip cookies, cereal, and hot dogs into the kitchen. I went back out to the car to get more bags filled oatmeal, crackers, peanut butter, and my all-time favorite candy, M&Ms. Then I went out to the car to get my blue Cookie Monster stuffed animal and I heard the most horrifying noise. I raced to the door, but it had already slammed shut as if rocks were crashing down. Then all was silent.
After everything was quiet I started frantically running around the garage. I raced around the cold gray garage screaming for my mom. The word mommy kept repeating in my head fast as a beating heart. My small baby feet ached so bad that it felt like the pain lasted hours. I was petrified. Tears raced down from my eyes to my cheeks. Running around and crying for mommy was no use. So I walked to the old scraped door with no color except for a drop of white with a creaking wooden step and sat down on the wooden step.
I cried nonstop. I looked around the room and saw bikes leaning against the wall like an old man leaning on his cane. One bike was shiny as a crisp clean nickel and the other dull as the green sea on a stormy day. They belonged to my older brother and sister. The helmets were resting on the shelf. One helmet was black with a red skeleton head and the other was a dark purple color. Next to the bikes was a blue chipped plastic basketball hoop with an orange ring at the top. Far off in the corner there was an old dirty cracked recycle bin filled with colorful balls that jumbled all together. I couldn’t stand being trapped in the garage that was stifling hot. The walls were covered in gray dust and the shutters were shut tight so no light could pass through them. The garage was colorless.
I thought about my mom and dad. I started crying and banging on the door. I looked around and screamed at the scary monster that loomed nearby. A big white blob was off to the side of the garage and it had eyes that stared at me as if I was its prey. Those big orange eyes glared at me, ready to leap after me. Its mouth was wide open, big enough to eat me up. Shaking like a leaf on a windy day, I cried even harder. Tears rolled down my face. I was so frightened that I thought I would never see the light of day again.
I looked at the door long and hard hoping I would be free to roam the meadows again. Then maybe this would be the end of living in this dismal garage. I heard foot steps coming towards me and at the same time I saw a shadow coming closer. The shadow was the shape of a human, but it was so dark I couldn’t tell who it was. When it came closer, it became lighter and lighter, filling with color. When the shadow came close enough to see the face, I realized it was my mom. I felt so happy that I almost cried. She held out her arms and picked me up from the ground. Then she carried me into the house as if I was as fragile as glass.
Once I entered the house, my mom got out the milk and poured some for me. I gulped the milk down my throat. I was covered in the dust from the garage. The dirt and dust reminded me of how frightened I was all day.
I remember myself as that little girl who got locked up in her garage. From that day on, every single moment that I spent in the horrible prison of a garage has never left me. The memory is still stuck in my head.