WOW

I think that is my problem here. However I only understood a little bit of it.

Why is this so complicated just to store a word ?

OK, so I thought storing total.byte0 in location 0 and then storing total.byte1 in location 1 would handle the whole word right ?
'----------------------------------------------------------------------
total=33024 or total.byte0=10000000 and total.byte1=11111111
write 0,total.byte0
write 1,total.byte1

If so then in location 0 would be 10000000 and in location 1 would be 11111111
or is this wrong ?

if it is right then I can't get that data back the same way ?

read 0,total.byte0
read 1,total.byte1

total=33024

if not then what ???? I'm more confused then before, but I think your on the right track