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Jaz woke up and started doing the dishes all by herself, never realizing there was a storm brewing - both inside the house - and out.

You see, Braydon had chosen to woke up Bennie instead of Marnie. For his trouble, all he got was nagging, yelling, and thrown back into bed without even a kiss goodnight. Bennie, relieved, went straight back to bed.

Before long, Marnie woke up and started her day. Brewed some coffee, made some Fruit Salad, threw a mousetrap into the hole by the kitchen, and tried to get a moment to eat some breakfast.

Without noticing Bennie (or thinking that, since it was past 10 AM, Bennie had already had plenty of sleep) ... or perhaps it was the fact that it was thundering outside and there was very little else to do... She wandered into the living room and turned on the TV. Unwittingly waking a very very grumpy Bennie.

Being woken up so rudely... again!... was enough to send Bennie off the deep end (temper-wise). Poor Jaz got the sharp side of his voice for a long tirade, and ended up being ordered to clean the entire apartment as well as the store bathroom... in the next two hours.... OR ELSE.

Or ELSE what? She wondered, stomping off angrily, and starting with the table full of dishes. Then she took out the trash. Put away toys... yeah. you get the picture. Exactly not what she wanted to be doing on a Sunday morning.

In the kitchen, Marnie had her hands full with fixing a spouting sink. Bennie came in, looking for coffee... only to find it was spoiled already. Which didn't improve his mood any.

Jaz avoided his ire by cleaning the floor while Marnie was still working on the sink. Hopefully the puddle would stop growing soon.

The smelly coffee made her wrinkle her nose, and she decided to sit at the other end of the table from it to drink her orange juice.

Marnie was far from done, however, because both the toilet and bathroom sink were broken, too.... so she headed into the most trafficked room in the house to fix them. Phoenix was on mop duty now, however, so Jaz was free to drink her juice in peace.

... More or less. Bennie was apparently still sick.. and finally had a valid reason to call in "sick" to work. He did this, and went back to his precious sports on TV.

Benji had not forgotten the night before, and... trying to, perhaps, get off of his week of grounding early - he took Brett into the now-fixed bathroom to attempt to potty train his little brother.

Then, he tried mopping the living room floor, but some stains were far too stubborn. Jaz had decided that since it was STILL storming violently outside, she would spend the rest of the day experimenting. Myles came home from his scout meeting proudly showing off three new badges and an award (that nobody but Marnie even bothered to comment on), and had Marnie help with his homework that was due tomorrow morning. Then, he got to work on his next badge: arts and crafts. Somehow, Marnie even let him use the "special" mac and cheese noodles, glue, glitter, and markers for his projects. The ones that nobody else was ever allowed to use. Then, Myles started a phase: being clingy to a caregiver. Nobody was surprised when it ended up being Marnie.

By this time, Bennie was exhausted. So he tried to put down the Murphy bed... only to end up partially stuck beneath it. Which.. again, didn't help his mood. The roar was probably heard through the entire neighborhood. However, despite the pain in his back and neck, there was no way he could afford medical care.. and he simply put the bed down.. again... and tried to take a nap. Being that school was the next morning, and everyone was afraid to wake up Bennie again (not that the mice weren't doing the best job at it), so they all shuffled off to bed fairly early.

Which gave Jaz time to sneak into the bathroom for a decent, uninterrupted, shower before bed.

The night was quiet (except for the thunder outside) until Benji sat bolt upright in bed from a nightmare. He had dreamed he was a successful young man who did his taxes, lived in a boring apartment in the city, and never partied. (I'm serious, that's pretty much what the game said he dreamed about - never seen that before...) Terrified it might come true, Benji vowed right then and there not to do his homework for the rest of the school year. And also: not to go back to bed any more tonight. So he got up, almost stepping on a mouse.. and got some congealed eggs and bacon from the fridge. (Yum?) He was afraid to wake up Bennie and Marnie by using the microwave to warm it up, however.. so cold rubbery eggs and bacon were what he ate. Hopefully, he thought, he could find enough to do to keep him busy until time to go to school in the morning. Heck, he was even willing to field the parenting duties for the twins should they wake up, too. Anything but going back to sleep.

Day Six < | Challenge Home Page | > Day Eight