6

A few of the motels had big signs that said they had "Color TV," which if you ask me is not anything to brag about in this day and age. Dad finally pulled over at a place with air- conditioning and a pool, which sounded pretty good to me, especially considering that I'd lost about five pounds in sweat sitting in the backseat. I haven't stayed in a whole lot of motels, but if I had to guess, I'd say we picked one on the lower end of the spectrum. The lobby smelled like mildew, and the carpet was covered in weird stains.

But everyone was too tired to get back in the car and look for another place to stay. We got the key to our room, and when we walked in it reeked of smoke. There were little holes in the comforter and pillows that I'm pretty sure were cigarette burns. Dad picked a towel off the floor, then dropped it because it was WET. Mom went back to the front desk and asked for a different room, but the clerk said the motel was full and that we'd gotten the last one.

Mom told her in that case we were gonna leave and take our business to another motel. But the clerk told her there was a twenty-four-hour cancellation policy, so we couldn't get our money back. When Mom returned to the room, she said we were gonna have to try and make the best of a bad situation. Then she and Dad stripped the bed down to the bare mattress.

Believe it or not, Manny slept through ALL of this. Mom said that if he woke up now, he'd be awake all night, so she was just gonna let him sleep through till morning. Mom put Manny down in the middle of the sofa bed and pulled a blanket over him. The rest of us were really hungry, so we emptied out the groceries Rodrick bought. But it turned out he didn't buy ANYTHING on Mom's list.

Rodrick was supposed to get sandwich supplies, orange juice, and stuff like that, but he just got a bunch of things HE likes. CHEEZ CURLZ Mom was pretty upset that Rodrick didn't get a single thing on the list she gave him, but his excuse was that he couldn't read her handwriting. Mom told him it wasn't very smart to get cinnamon rolls and a frozen pizza, since those things needed an oven and we didn't HAVE one.

But Rodrick said we could MICROWAVE the pizza. Then he put it inside the microwave oven to prove it. At least, Rodrick THOUGHT it was a microwave. It was actually a SAFE. By the time he figured that out, the pizza was locked inside. Mom gave me what was left of her cash and said to go down to the vending machine to get the most nutritious stuff I could find.