guest post from the adolescent boy: i hear the little monkey and the usually calm tiger fighting in the jungle

When I step into the grand double doors of my house I feel like I'm walking into a castle, my own humble abode. The doors are painted with beautiful navy blue like the calm sea, carrying boats to shore. As I take my first step I see the stairs laden with carpet and I think, "Oh how I love the warm feeling of the carpet as I set my foot on this first step." As soon as I step on the last step I hear the little monkey and the usually calm tiger fighting in the jungle I call my room. When I turn around to leave without having to interfere they seem to sense me. I turn even faster to run, as I come careening down the stairs they catch up, so I turn and see the monkey jump to attack. I jump for the couch which sucks me in while the monkey and the usually calm tiger come in for the kill.

"NO!!!" I scream as the lips of the two come straight for my face.

"DYLAN!!! You're back!!" they say and then the lips hit me like little bullets.

The 3^rd grader and the 5^th grader got me, and I can't fight back or even hope to stop them. When they finally decide to let go, all the craziness has made me hungry so I get up and head to the kitchen. I take a step off the carpet and onto the cold, bare, wood floor of the kitchen it sends chills up my back. I open the fridge door and all the delicious food stares at me with worry as I try so hard to decide which one of them will be eaten. I give up on the fridge and head to the pantry. I open it and there sit the cookies, the peanut butter, and the doughnuts. I can't decide there either so I open the fridge again, and then the freezer and the pantry all at once and try to find something quick and easy.

As I look around, waiting to see what will rise up to be eaten, I see all the different colors of the walls and the various assortments of pictures hanging up. The wall colors remind me of a great jar of candy. The art covering them adds to this effect but also adds something of its own; it adds great happiness and smiling faces and all the different colors. Our walls of art shows me proof of something my aunt once told all of the family: you can't mess up a drawing, painting, or anything that you are creating, you just make it some other part of the picture. I go into the dining room to sit down and eat and as I'm walking in I look at the chandelier hanging so low from the ceiling and think to myself that if the table wasn't where it was then everyone except the 3^rd and 5^th graders would hit their heads a lot. I also see all the PEZ dispensers that we have collected over a long time. They kind of make me think that we have our own little Hollywood on the window sill of our dining room window. They act like a little mini Hollywood too, because if one of them gets tapped just slightly then they all topple over and it takes a lot of time and energy to put back up.

The whole house, the dining room, the walls, the couch, the kitchen, the upstairs disaster area, and the little monkey and the usually calm tiger all make up the little place I call home sweet home.

[Written as a homework assignment about personification, metaphor and simile.]