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smartest move back there at the school. I'm not exactly the fastest runner, and a half hour isn't that big of a head start. Tuesday Tonight I realized all of my current problems can be traced back to when someone in my family started stealing the lunch snacks. So I decided to catch the thief once and for all. I knew Mom had gone grocery shopping over the weekend, so there was a fresh supply of snacks in the laundry room. That meant the snack thief was pretty much guaranteed to strike. After dinner I went in the laundry room and turned

这是学校里最聪明的举动。 我并不是跑得最快的人，半小时也算不上什么领先优势。 星期二今晚，我意识到我现在所有的问题都可以追溯到我家里有人开始偷午餐零食的时候。 所以我决定一劳永逸地抓住那个小偷。 我知道妈妈周末去杂货店买东西了，所以洗衣房里有新鲜的零食。 这就意味着偷零食的贼肯定会来。 晚饭后，我走进洗衣房，转过身来

off the light. Then I climbed in an empty basket and waited. About a half hour later, someone came in the room and turned on the light, so I hid under a towel. But it turns out it was just Mom. I stayed perfectly still while she got clothes out of the dryer. Mom didn't notice me in there, and she dumped the clothes from the dryer right into the bin where I was hiding. Then she walked out of the room, and I waited some

关掉灯。然后我爬进一个空篮子里等着。 大约半小时后，有人走进房间开了灯，所以我藏在毛巾下面。 但结果是只有妈妈。 她从烘干机里拿出衣服时，我一动也不动。 妈妈没注意到我在里面，她把烘干机里的衣服直接扔进了我藏的箱子里。 然后她走出了房间，我等了一会儿

more. I was seriously ready to wait there all night if that's what it took. But the clothes from the dryer were really warm, and I started feeling a little drowsy. And before I knew it, I was asleep. I don't know how many hours I slept, but what I do know is that I woke up to the sound of crinkling cellophane. When I heard the sound of chewing, I turned on my flashlight and caught the thief red-handed. HA!

更多。如果有必要，我真的准备在那等一晚上。 但是烘干机里的衣服真的很热，我开始觉得有点困了。 我还没反应过来，就睡着了。 我不知道我睡了多少小时，但我知道的是，我是在玻璃纸起皱的声音中醒来的。 当我听到咀嚼的声音时，我打开手电筒，当场抓住了小偷。 哈!

It was Dad! Man, I should have known it was him from the start. When it comes to junk food, he's a total addict. I started to give Dad a piece of my mind, but he cut me off. He wasn't interested in talking about why he was stealing our lunch snacks. What he was interested in talking about was what the heck I was doing buried in a pile of Mom's underwear in the middle of the night. Right at that moment, we heard Mom coming down the stairs. I think me and Dad realized how bad the situation looked for both of us, so we each just grabbed as many oatmeal creams as we could carry and made a run for it. Wednesday I was still really steamed at Dad for stealing our lunch treats, and I was planning on confronting him tonight. But Dad was in bed by 6:00, so I didn't get my chance.

是爸爸！伙计，我一开始就该知道是他。 说到垃圾食品，他完全上瘾了。 我开始跟爸爸说我的坏话，但他打断了我的话。 他对为什么偷我们的午餐零食不感兴趣。 他感兴趣的是我在大半夜埋在妈妈的内衣堆里做什么。 就在这时，我们听到妈妈下楼来了。 我想我和爸爸都意识到情况对我们俩来说有多糟糕，所以我们每个人都拿了尽可能多的燕麦霜，然后跑了出去。 星期三，我还在为爸爸偷吃我们的午餐而生气，我打算今晚和他对质。 但爸爸六点就上床了，所以我没机会。

Dad went to bed so early because he was depressed about something that happened when he got home from work. When Dad was getting the mail, our neighbors from up the street, the Snellas, walked down the hill with their new baby. The baby's name is Seth, and I think he's about two months old. Every time the Snellas have a baby, six months later they throw a big "half-birthday" party and invite all the neighbors. The highlight of each Snella half-birthday party is when the adults line up and try to make the baby laugh. The grown-ups do all these wacky things and make complete fools of themselves.

爸爸很早就上床睡觉了，因为他下班回家后发生的一件事让他很沮丧。 爸爸去取邮件的时候，我们住在街上的邻居斯内拉一家抱着他们刚出生的孩子走下山。 孩子的名字叫赛斯，我想他大概两个月大。 每当斯涅拉一家有了孩子，六个月后，他们就会举办一个盛大的“半生日”派对，邀请所有的邻居。 每次斯奈拉半岁生日派对的高潮都是大人们排着队逗孩子笑。 大人们做这些古怪的事情，让自己出丑。

I've been to every single Snella half-birthday party so far, and no baby has laughed once. Everyone knows the Real reason the Snellas have these half-birthday parties is because their big dream is to win the $10,000 Grand Prize on "America's Funniest Families." That's this TV show where they play home movies of people getting hit in the groin with golf balls and stuff like that. The Snellas are just hoping something really funny will happen at one of their parties so they can catch it on videotape. They've actually gotten some pretty good stuff over the years. During Sam Snella's half-birthday party, Mr. Bittner split his pants doing jumping jacks. And during Scott Snella's party, Mr.

到目前为止，我参加了每一次斯奈拉半岁生日派对，没有一个宝宝笑过一次。 大家都知道Snellas一家举办这些半生日派对的真正原因是因为他们最大的梦想是赢得“美国最有趣家庭”的大奖 那是一个电视节目，播放人们被高尔夫球击中腹股沟之类的家庭录像。 斯尼拉一家只是希望在他们的派对上发生一些真正有趣的事情，这样他们就能把它拍下来。 这些年来他们确实得到了一些很好的东西。 在山姆·斯奈拉（Sam Snella）的半生日派对上，比特纳在做开合跳时划破了裤子。 在斯科特·斯奈拉的派对上。