"This is taking forever." "You sure you don't want to just go outside and fill it up with the hose?" "I don't want hose spaghetti." "Why not?" "You had hose coffee this morning." "Are we gonna be eating anytime soon?" "I'd hate to have to let the state know you're feeding me dinner this late." "I believe you two still have a file open." "That's the sound it made right before my half-shower this morning." " Okay, here we go." " Whoo!" "Come on, baby." "Mama needs some s'ghetti!" "We should probably go down there." "Or we could never go down there again." "Damn it!" "Mom, I need your help." "Not a great time right now, Brick." "I need to turn in my history paper online by 9:00, and that's in five minutes." "Mom?" "Mom?" "!" "Are you even listening to me?" "No, Brick, I'm really not." "Kind of in the middle of something here." "Frankie!" "But the website isn't letting me turn it in." "It's 50% of my grade." "Yeah, well, 50% of the basement is under water, Brick, so you're gonna have to figure it out yourself." "What?" "!" "What the hell you doing up there?" "I'm getting towels!" "Forget the towels!" "You got to turn off the water at the source!" "At the what?" "At the source." "The source!" "I don't even know what that means!" "Mom, there's only four minutes now until the deadline." "Mom?" "Mom?" "Mom?" "Dad?" "Dad?" "Dad?" "Dad?" "How can you not know what the source is?" "You got to know this stuff, Frankie." "What if I was dead?" "Then my new rich husband would hire me a plumber." "What's the matter with this door?" "Can't one thing in this house work?" "I put the mop handle in there." "What?" "Why?" "Because Nancy Donahue said there's been break-ins lately." "And you're worried someone's gonna steal all this?" "You're a ridiculous woman, you know that?" "Yeah, you better walk off." "I can't believe this is happening." "You know how hard it was to write a five-page paper on the Louisiana Purchase using a computer that doesn't have the letter "L"?" "All right." "I did it." "And the handle snapped off in my hand." "Don't just stand there." "Help us." "Brick can't get his homework on the website." "Bigger fish to fry right now, Frankie." "Just print it out and hand it in to the teacher tomorrow." "They don't let them hand it in, they have to upload it to Cyberdesk." "When I was a kid, we didn't have computers." "Nobody had computers." "All we had were pencils and paper and we all turned out fine." "Save your stories for the campfire, Grandpa." "Right now I'm trying to make sure our son doesn't fail history." "Yeah, well, maybe if you were more on top of it, he wouldn't always be doing everything at the last minute." "Excuse me?" "Are you saying it's my job to make sure Brick's on top of it?" "Well, homework is your department." "Oh, lucky me, how did I get that job?" "Oh, right, I have all the jobs." "Oh, really?" "Do you change the oil in the cars?" "Do you shovel the driveway?" "Do you know where the main water valve is?" "Hate to interrupt, but I have 57 seconds to get this in." "54!" "Really, Mike?" "You really want to have the "Who does more around here" argument?" "I don't think you do." "I don't think you do 'cause you know I'd be winning." "48." "I'm sorry, but maybe you're just too busy watching TV and endlessly brushing your teeth to see what I do." "Because I have to be responsible for knowing everybody's schedule, I'm doing all the cooking..." "Oh, really?" "How many Burger Barn punch cards have we blown through this year, huh?" "Chef?" "I didn't see you complaining when you were shoving it in your big, dumb face, you dummy." "That's it." "It's over." "Cyberdesk is no longer accepting documents." "Why does everything have to be in the stupid cloud anyway?" "His homework's in a cloud." "Our pictures are in a cloud." "No, I printed them out like you said and put them in a box in the basement." "Oh, my God, the basement." "People always say a new day brings new hope." "People are wrong." "Where do you want this?" "There's good." "Hey, Brick, did you e-mail your teacher and tell her what happened with your history paper?" "Oh, I read it wrong." "Turns out the paper's not due till 9:00 P.M. Tuesday." "Hey, I didn't know you guys were coming home." " Your dad and I were just..." " Save it." "I don't want to hear about your weird role playing." "Brick texted us." "He said there's some kind of a situation." "Yeah, there's definitely a situation." "Well, we're here to help." "Wait, I don't think we're talking about the same situation." "What's going on?" "I think this is more of a family room conversation." "Yeah." "Unless somebody's pregnant or failing out of school, we got stuff to do." "Oh, someone's failing, all right." " But it's in the school of parenting." " Mm-hmm." "Please sit." "Here's the thing..." "Brick reached out to us because he's upset about some of the things that have been going on around here." "And after hearing his cries for help," "Sue and I felt we had no choice but to come home and speak on his behalf." "Speak on his behalf about what?" "You two... the fighting, the bickering, the constant barbs at each other's expense." "The eye rolling, the rude hand gestures behind each others' backs." "I hear the term "crazy woman" was used?" "It was actually "ridiculous woman."" "Thank you, Brick." "I was also informed that Mom called Dad a dummy and Dad shook a mop in front of Mom's face." "I believe what I learned in church was there are better ways to express oneself than mop-shaking and name-calling." "Okay, I don't know where this is coming from." "Your dad and I are very much in love." "Hmm, how do I put this?" "Um, Brick is a plant, and the terrarium of your anger is poisoning the soil with which he needs to grow." "Mm-hmm." "Look, I know this is a lot to process, but the important thing is that you've heard it and, moving forward, you'll try to do better." "It's not all on you." "I feel partly responsible for not being home on a daily basis to point out your flaws." "Is that everything, Brick?" "Is there anything else you would like to add?" "No." "Thank you." "I think this was really productive." "Oh, yeah." "Oh, come on." "No crying." "This house is wet enough as it is." "I'm sorry, but our kids just gave us an intervention." "It wasn't an intervention." "Wha...?" "They both got up before 10:00 A.M. on a Saturday and drove over here without their laundry... that's an intervention." "There's a show on TV called "Intervention,"" "and that's pretty much exactly what happens." "Look, if Brick had a problem with us, he didn't have to go tattle on us to those two." "He could've just come to us and said something." "Well, obviously, he didn't feel comfortable doing that because we're monsters." "We yell at each other and his soil is getting damaged and..." "Don't look at me." "You're really more of the yeller." "Oh, okay, maybe, but you have more of that seethy anger." "You know, most of your serial killers have that." "We have to be better." "Ugh." "No, I'm serious." "Our kids came to us and expressed concern in a mature and articulate way, and we have to respond in kind by role modeling good behavior." "I think we should apologize to them." "We've been married for over 20 years." "I think we should get a free pass on having a little dust-up." "Come on, Mike." "Let's show our kids we're better." "Let's show them we're big enough to admit when we're wrong." "Does that mean you think I'm right?" "Aw!" "What are laughing at?" "Guy just threw a boomerang and hit himself in the junk." "You?" "Charlie Rose just said something pithy." "Oh, yeah." "Hey, guys." "Dad and I want to talk to you for a minute." "Sue, get in here." "What's up?" "So your Dad and I have something to say." "We're sorry." "We thought about what you guys said and you're right." "We have not been behaving in a way that we're proud of." "And we are gonna be better." "Okay, then." "I think that was really healthy and good." "And, again, thank you for coming to us." "And know that our door is always open." "Wow." "Our parents just apologized to us from their hearts." "Do you know what this means?" "We have them at our mercy." "Now, what do we want?" "Guys, trust me." "I am a business major who attended nearly half his classes." "What we have here is something the French call leverage." "What are you talking about?" "What I'm talking about is Mom and Dad are feeling pretty guilty right about now, so it's a great time to try to get something out of them." "You know, it's like a chicken place." "They have the power because you want chicken and they have the chicken, so you have to pay them, but if I find a half a rat in my chicken, mnh-mnh, they got to pay me." "I have the power." "The entire power balance has shifted." "So you're saying Mom and Dad just gave us half a rat?" "Exactly." "And now the question is, what do they have that we want?" "Mm, this would be a lot easier if we had rich parents." "Ooh, maybe we could ask each of them to give us a kidney, sell it on the black market." "'Course, there are three of us, so one of us would not be getting a kidney." " Let me guess." " Yeah, sorry, Brick." "But maybe Sue an go halfsies with you on her kidney." "We're not harvesting our parents' organs!" "Well, we got to do something!" "We're wasting valuable time here." "Who knows how long this goodwill is gonna last?" "We could be one sweat sock on the table away from blowing this whole thing." "Huh!" "They've never taken us on a good vacation." "Huh, right?" "I mean, I'm not talking about" "South Dakota for Aunt Edie's funeral." "I'm not talking about Kentucky for Dad's lame-o caves." "I am talking about a real beach vacay." "What about the Florida Keys?" "Carly went there once, and she brought me back a pen where if you turned it upside down, the sun sets." "Think about it." "We could get one of those fancy motels where you can drive right up to your door." "And you can see headlights stream across the wall when you sleep?" "And I can pet one of Hemingway's cats!" "Yes!" "What?" "Legend has it that a sea captain gave Ernest Hemingway a white six-toed cat, and now the Florida Keys..." "Stop." "You had me at six-toed cat." "We're going clockwise." "My clockwise or your clockwise?" "There's only one clockwise." "Whatever, Big Ben, just tell me which way to go." "Hey." "Oh, we were just talking." "We weren't fighting." "What's up?" "Well, we just wanted to say thanks again for apologizing." "Yeah, and, um, in the spirit of healing, we were thinking one way to repair our family and for you guys to make us all feel better is, um, well, you know what?" "Brick is the youngest and the most traumatized, so why don't we let him tell you?" "Brick." "Ice cream sandwiches?" "You didn't tell me I was gonna talk." "We all agreed on Florida, Brick." "All you had to say was "Florida."" "Well, I'm sorry." "I was thinking about Florida, and I was on the beach petting Hemingway's cats, and it was hot." "And I thought how nice it would be to have an ice cream sandwich." "Yeah, but why would you ask for something you can just go to the freezer and take?" "I thought you had to ask to have an ice cream sandwich." "No!" "No!" "Really?" "!" "Oh, great, now we're eating ice cream sandwiches instead of going to Florida." "They're not even the full size." "They're the cuties." "'Cause Mom's always thinking she's got to lose weight." "So what's the plan?" "There is no plan." "You blew it." "The universe gave us a half a rat, and instead of a million-dollar settlement, we settled for a free bucket of chicken." "We lost, and once again, Mom and Dad are the winners." "Is this rag or a towel?" "Uh, it's either a really nice rag or a really gross towel." "It's kind of sad we can't tell the difference." "All right, I'm just gonna go up and throw these in the dryer." "If you put them in the dryer, everything we dry is gonna smell like dirty rag." "Says the guy who never does the laundry." "Let's see you sharpen the lawnmower blades." "You don't want me holding a sharp blade in my hand right now." "You'd be doing me a favor." "Oh, my God." "The kids are right." "We're like the Bickersons." "No wonder poor Brick was traumatized." "Poor Brick?" "We wouldn't have been fighting in the first place if it wasn't for "poor Brick."" "That's true." "Without his whole homework fiasco, you and I would have been having a very pleasant evening bailing filthy water out of our basement." "Followed by a romantic hose-spaghetti dinner." "You know, when you think of it, most of our fights are because of them." "Remember last week, you got mad at me 'cause Sue guilted me into going to her college and bringing up her "It's Kitten Time Somewhere" poster?" "How 'bout the time Brick swallowed all that Jell-O powder?" "We practically went 12 rounds 'cause you wanted to take him to the emergency room, and I said it's gonna be Sue's $300 fart all over again." "I mean, if it weren't for those kids, we'd be the happiest couple in town." "And where do they get off coming into our house" " and telling us how to parent?" " Yeah." "And then we end up apologizing to them." "You know, when we were kids, you didn't tell your parents what they were doing wrong." "You know what you did?" "You ate your vegetables." "I have a good mind to buy vegetables and make those kids eat them." "Oh, we're gonna do a lot more than that." " But we..." " Listen up." "We know we just said we're sorry, but we're not sorry." "And I'll tell you something else... what we have here is just fine." "We're very much in love." "This is working." "But you know what's not working?" "You guys." " Nice segue, honey." " Thanks, babe." "We're down in the basement busting our butts and you're up here eating ice cream sandwiches that we paid for with our hard-earned money." "Well, guess what." "The free ride ends here." "Let's go." "Move, move." "Come on, heel-toe, heel-toe." "Can't we at least discuss this?" "What did we even do?" "Nothing to discuss." "We're right, you're wrong." "Not sorry." "We are so, so sorry." "This is amazing." "Uh, how is this amazing, exactly?" "Another half a rat just fell in our laps." "It was a one-in-a-million shot, and this time, we're not settling for the free bucket of chicken." "We're going for something much bigger." "You mean like Mallomars?" "Dude, for the last time, you are in high school." "You can take snacks without asking." " Ding Dongs?" " Yes." "Pretzels?" " Yes!" " Yes!" "You're blowing my mind." "I don't know, you guys." "I'm really starting to feel bad for Mom and Dad." "You feel bad for the people that threw your little brother down the stairs?" "They didn't throw him." "If anything, you bumped him." "Oh, tomato, potahto." "Plus, they did apologize." "And they do feel really bad for Brick." "Stop right there." "Do not give them human qualities." "We can't do what we need to do if we think of them as people." "Ugh, I feel horrible about Brick." "I mean, we might as well have just thrown him down the stairs." "That's what we did... we threw him down the stairs with our words." "You know that's going in the file." "I'm disappointed in us, Mike." "You know, first chance we got, we went right back to our yell-y selves." "And they don't deserve that." "They are great kids." "All I know is not one of our great kids even thought about coming down here to help us until we yelled at them." "And I'll tell you something else... when I was a kid, I would never have dreamed of giving my dad parenting advice." "And he sure the hell didn't want my opinion." "If I was sitting in his chair, he wouldn't even ask me to move... he'd just sit on me." "See, now you're getting all worked up again." "That's exactly what we're trying to avoid." "We need to stay cool, just keep doing our work, and let the kids realize on their own that they should come down and help." "Trust me, Mike, role modeling good behavior will work." "It didn't." "Hey." "I got Brick all settled into his room." "I was wondering if you guys needed any help." "Thank you, Sue." "Thank you so much." "Yeah, you can start by hanging some of those old photos to dry." "Don't worry about saving any from my perm years." "See?" "I knew it would work." "Yeah, for the easy one." "I n't see Axl down here." "All right, we might have to give him a little more time." "Yeah, or we can give him no more time and I can just go up there and punish him." "Yeah, right." "You're serious?" "Damn right I'm serious." "You're gonna punish your 23-year-old son." "How are you gonna do that?" "Go to the college and tell the president of the university he can't have dessert?" "I'll take his phone away." "You can't do that." "We're bundled." "It'll unravel our whole plan." "Plus, if he doesn't have a phone, we'll never hear from him again." "Well, then he can't do laundry here anymore." "He does it at Sue's now." "He can forget about staying here for the summer." "Said the other day if he had to stay here, he'd die." "Okay, look, you can stay down here and role model all you want, but I'm not gonna tip-toe around my kids anymore." "I don't care how old he is." "I'm still in charge." "He's gonna listen to me." "And if he's in my chair, I'm gonna sit right on him." "Well, look who decided to go out and get themselves a snack." "What?" "You know what?" "Being a part of a family means stepping up and helping out when something goes wrong." "Your mom and I are busting our butts downstairs." "Hell, your sister's even down there." " But I..." " But nothing!" "I don't want to hear anything out of your mouth unless it's "I'm sorry," and, of course, it'll be a cold day in Hell before that happens." "What are you talking about?" "I say I'm sorry all the time." "God, I'm sorry!" "Sorry!" "Oh, I'm so, so sorry." "Okay, so maybe I'm not the best at apologizing, but at least I try." "What's that supposed to mean?" "I'm just saying you never apologize." "Maybe I learned it from you." "I apologize." "I apologized to you five hours ago." "No, Mom apologized." "You just stood there." "You never say you're sorry." "Dad, you ate the other half of the sandwich I was saving." "I bought it." "Dad, you were supposed to pick me up an hour ago." "When I was a kid, we walked home." "Catch." "Ow?" "I said, "Catch."" " Well, I..." " It's okay." "Look, I know it's hard for you to show your feelings 'cause of, you know, the way you were raised." "You don't like to be vulnerable." "And let's face it, apologizing is a very vulnerable thing to do, but even though you never say you're sorry, I mean, you show it in other ways." "Yeah." "Well, we're getting away from the point." "And the point is that we've got a flooded basement and you're out getting yourself a burger." "Well, actually, I was getting everybody burgers." "Oh?" "Oh." "Well, that was nice." "But it doesn't change the fact that you should've come down and helped..." "A lot sooner?" "Yeah, you're right." "I should have." "I realized that when I was standing in line at the burger place plotting about what I could get out of you guys." "And I look up, I see the deep-fried family feed bag for $5.99, and I'm thinking, you'd probably buy us that, right?" "'Cause you're always thinking about us and whether we need fried things." "Anyway, that's why I got everybody dinner." "That's also why I picked up a wet vac 'cause I thought that might make the clean-up a little easier." "But you're right, I should have been more mature, but I guess I just got wrapped up in myself." "Yeah." "Well, good, you should... work on that." "Oh, my God!" "Dad had a moustache?" "Oh, yeah." "You can let that one float away." "Hey, listen, thanks for the help." "You know, I was hoping that instead of forcing you down here, you would choose to come, and you did." "Well, I think sometimes it's better if we just come to it on our own, you know?" "Instead of all the yelling." "Yeah, I guess I have resorted to yelling a little." "It's just that a lot of times things get so crazy and busy, and... and I just get frazzled." "Well, it seems like... and this is just what I've observed over the years... but, you know, you say that you're always busy and you don't have time and you don't like" "how crazy everything is, but maybe you do kind of like the drama 'cause all the craziness distracts you from feeling the feelings that you may not be entirely comfortable with." "Oh." "Well, I..." "And I think if you just slowed down a little bit and took care of yourself, then things wouldn't have to build up and burst all at once." "It's kind of like these old rusty pipes." "If you just took care of things on a daily basis, then you wouldn't have to freak out when things feel like they're flooding down on you." "Well, thank you." "That's a lot to chew on." "Mom, are you crying?" "Maybe." "Don't say anything to your dad." "So did you figure out a punishment for Axl?" "Uh, no." "No." "He had actually gone out to grab everyone dinner." "Okay, I have never used this word before to describe Axl, but that's very mature of him." "Yeah." "He seems to be getting a little more mature and smart." "Yeah, Sue's getting kind of smart, too." "It's weird." "It's like they've been watching us their whole life, and now they know stuff about us." "Did you remember to pick up soap the other day?" "Uh, no, I forgot." "I'm sorry." "Did you just say, "I'm sorry"?" "Yeah." "What's the big deal?" "You never say you're sorry." "Okay." "Don't make a big drama out of it." "I'm not making a..." "You're right." "I'm gonna work on that." "You know, you think you need to role model for your kids, but the fact is whether you think you're modeling or not, they are watching you." "They've been watching you the whole time." "Okay, Axl and I threw out everything that's ruined." "All the rest of it is just kind of ruined, so I'm guessing we're keeping it." "How is it that my Lily Tomlin "And That's the Truth" album gets wrecked and that box of old answering machines is dry as a bone?" "I don't know." "We may not be perfect, but we did a few things right." "I mean, I think we did." "I don't know." "I'll ask the kids."