The Last Guy Who Did That… He Died! As my younger cousin, Travis, walked into the living room of my house, he looked for interesting things he could look at and touch. He started to slowly walk toward the broken, bottom half of our entertainment center. My siblings and I, enjoying our Thanksgiving dinner, watched him carefully as he curiously reached for a handle of one drawer in the entertainment center that contained at least 50 movies. He was so close to opening it when my brother exclaimed, “Careful there! The last guy who did that… he died! Travis slowly backed away, turned around, and ran to his mother, but the real question is Who died? Initially, I need to tell you something about myself.
Growing up, and to this day, I sometimes blow things out of proportion and worry… inevitably. Where does all of this worry come from? My dad. From the time I was out of the womb to this day, he tells me of all the danger that could come. It might be a 1 in one million chance, but he worries. One of the things he told my siblings and me as we were growing up was that if we pulled the drawers of our entertainment center out too far, the whole thing would tumble down, and kill us.
This lead me to never opening the drawers in the chance that I would end up with a face full of TV. Thave also grown up side-by-side with my cousins. Kyle and Caleb Cochran are only six months younger than me. We live about five miles from each other, too, so we spent our entire childhood together. We have always been in the same grade and sometimes the same classes. We were always grouped together for field trips and other group activities in elementary school. My mom and their mom are also close sisters, which sometimes leads to one mom watching the others’ kids for the weekend when they were out. Long story short, we are all very close.
Another factor in this story involves my dad being a band director. I have been involved with band and music all of my life. I have long, hot and sweaty marching band summers and long freezing indoor percussion winters. This story takes place during one of those long freezing winter seasons. Although the temperature was warmer than most other winter days in frigid state of Indiana, it was a tad chilly. My siblings were home from college. Kyle and Caleb had to stay with us for the weekend because their parents were out of town. I was so excited to have everyone come to my winter percussion competition that weekend.
My cousins never come to my band competitions, so it was a special day. That is all beside the point; however. After my competition, Kyle, Caleb, Matt, Meghann, my mom, and I hit the road for home. At the house, we started to set up the living room for Kyle and Caleb to spend the night. We had to make room for them in our dark, open living room containing various items of furniture pushed against the walls. Of course, about an eighth of the living room was occupied by the eight or nine foot entertainment center. The entertainment center towered over all of us with dark and polished stained wood.
The structure itself contained a late 1980s television, CD player, satellite, DVD and VHS player, and the collection of about ten million movies weighing it down to our hard wood floors. The bottom half had four drawers; three of which, held DVDs and VHS tapes. The bottom drawer had been broken for as long as I can remember, but we still jammed all of our extra blankets inside it. The top half, with all of the electronic appliances, had two large doors that never truly shut all the way because of the colossal TV. My dad had to be right because someday, it was bound to fall over.
After we set up the sleeping arrangements, we began to “watch TV. ” We actually only turned the TV on and talked about who knows what. Kyle and Meghann were the closest to the television at this point. My brother was sitting on the couch at the back of the room, and I was behind the couch spinning around in my slippery socks on the wood floor, like I always do. Caleb was sitting in the middle of the room. He was starting to get anxious about what we were watching. As we talked and Matt joked, Caleb was more concerned with watching a funny movie. He kept trying to bring it up, “Guys, we should really watch a movie.
I am in the mood for a funny one. ” Finally, my brother hollered, “Yeah, we should watch a movie. Hey Caleb since you are the one dying to watch one, why don’t you pick one out! The movies are in the middle drawer of the entertainment center. ” Caleb got up and proceeded in his slouched, slinky walk toward the drawers. I started to think about what my dad had told me when Caleb reached for the largest drawer. “Caleb don’t pull that drawer out too far, the whole thing will fall over and you will probably die. ” I said with a laugh under my breath. Being the person that I am, even when I think my voice is loud, it isn’t.
I still don’t remember if Caleb heard me or not because immediately after I said that, it was like slow motion. The drawer went out too far, and the entire entertainment center came crashing down to swallow 12-year-old, meager Caleb. It was like something incredible was happening and no one could do anything about it. My siblings, Kyle and I were astonished as it happened. It seemed like an eternity as the structure collapsed. “CALEB! ” | shouted in my most emphatic voice (most likely somewhere between mezzo forte and mezzo piano, but roaring for me). We heard nothing. “… yep… ” He finally answered in the most offhand voice imaginable.
We all breathed a sigh of alleviation and began to chuckle as we lifted the enormous structure off of our cherished family member. Being the slender human that he is, he had somehow crouched into a fetal position that saved his life. We discussed how if that had happened to any of the rest of us, we definitely would have been injured or dead. Giggling under my breath, I ran upstairs where my parents were still sound asleep and told them, “Caleb knocked the entertainment center down and almost died. ” My parents, of course, were immensely confused as they came downstairs to see the entertainment center in shambles.
My mom started to chuckle as we told her the story. My dad however, being half asleep, was irritated. He had constructed that entertainment center with his grandfather. My dad was too flustered and fatigued to deal with anything, so he went back to bed, followed later by my mom who had told us to clean up the mess before my dad woke up the next day. As we cleaned the rubble of our television, movies, CDs and many other random items, we laughed and shared our perspectives of the accident. We were all thinking the same thing: Did I just see my own brother/cousin die?
We couldn’t believe it and we still can’t believe it to this day. So even though the guy didn’t die, we all know that losing a family member is extremely difficult, especially when they are very close. This happening right before my eyes would have been the worst thing that could have ever happened to me and my family. Fortunately, this story turned out to be quite humorous. For that reason, we may laugh at Caleb, me and at the whole affair, because it is quite amusing. My family always laughs about this accident, but sometimes I wonder: What if Caleb didn’t save himself?
