Introduction
‘Us and Them’ is an essay story that was written by Humorist David Sadaris. He is a commentator on the National Public Radio and play writer whose work in this essay includes a story of two families that do not share the same views about life. There is a contradiction between the two families on how they view life. The aim of this paper is to make a comparison of these two families on their views about life, interests and way of doing things.
Us And Them
The two families in this essay are the author’s family and the Tomkeys’ family. The author’s family included the author’s father, mother and the two sisters. The other family is of Tomkey’s consisted of the father, wife and two daughters. At first, the author’s family lived in North Carolina and later moved to New York where they lived in the countryside with no sidewalks or street lights. Even if one walked out of the house, they still could not meet anyone on the streets because most people there actually could spend most of their time in houses watching Televisions. The author's family too was not left out because they also had a TV and they spent most their time indoors. This meant that there were no close friendships and in most cases everyone just was minding his or her business. The other family that is compared here is that of Tom keys. They spent most of their time indoors although they did not have any TV. Instead of watching TV, they could just talk and talk until they slept. Unlike other families, Mr. Tomkey could just sometimes walk around because he had no TV but he could usually say it is because he had no interest on TV. Speculations said that Mr. Tomkey could just walk around and pass time because he had no TV. On the other hand Mr. Tomkey instead of watching TV, he could just listen to the radio and at night they could just talk during dinner.
The houses of these two families had been just adjacent to one another. This means that the author from his bedroom could see what was going on in the Mr. Tomkeys’ residence. And if one took a good view from Mr. Tomkey’s house, he too could see what was happening in the author’s home. The author’s mother liked giving her children candy and the author liked so much having that candy in his bedroom. The author later learnt that the mother was coming for the candy and what he did because of his young ignorance thought that the best way was to hide the candy in the mouth. When the mother entered her room, he was embarrassed and could not even talk because the mouth was full. When Mrs. Tomkey visited the author’s home to ask for the candy, it was an embarrassment for the author but his mother tried to convince Mrs. Tomkeys that all was well and always there was candy at her place. Every one in most cases could mind his or her own business and the author’s just let them believe that was the way of life. Even at school, the author found it difficult even to assist those students he really felt that needed his assistance. He always thought that given an opportunity he could even during the weekends assist those weak students to learn and understand hard concepts.
Halloween usually fell on Saturday end month and during that time, the author accompanied by his mother and the two sisters went to the store to buy costumes, unfortunately they found that all the good costumes had been taken by Tomkey’s. Meanwhile, the Tomkeys family was away from the lakeside and could not attend the event. The event was not amusing at all to the author because their dresses were not for the event and she described that her sisters were dressed as witches and himself as a hobo. After the event of Halloween in that evening, the author and her family were seated comfortably and the author was just thinking how the event was and the way he did not enjoy it to the maximum. The Tomekeys’ had not had an opportunity to join the Halloween since they were at the lake side visiting their father in law. As the author’s family were relaxing watching TV in their house at night, the Tomekeys’ showed up. Of course they had missed an opportunity to be at the Halloween and obvious they were not happy. Tomekeys have never had a TV and the author knew that even they had paid them a visit, they did not understand anything.
Conclusion
