"Let's play the Christmas light game!" shouted Olivia, interrupting their conversation.
"In July?" asked Devin. "Nobody has Christmas lights up in the summer!"
"The Roberts do," Emily retorted.
“And the Garcias do too!” added Olivia.
Both twins were staring down at them with their blue, almond shaped eyes. Their long blond hair was tied into matching pigtails and, like usual, they were dressed exactly the same. They looked so much alike, the only way Devin could tell for sure which was which was by noting the large freckle under Emily’s left ear. Right now they looked pleased at having proven Devin wrong.
"True," observed Shane. "But I doubt we'll see any here; especially since we’re driving through the desert. Any other ideas?"
They decided to pass the time by telling their whole repertoire of jokes.
Shane had always been the best joke teller in the family. It wasn’t just the jokes that were funny; it was the way he told them. Shane could have a whole group rolling on the ground at one of his jokes; yet if Devin repeated the same joke word for word at a different gathering, he could only get their eyes to roll – or maybe a polite chuckle or two. But he’d heard a joke at baseball practice a couple of months ago that he’d been saving for an occasion such as this.
"There was a law firm that went broke," Devin began. "They decided to divide up all their assets. One of the lawyers got the company car, another got the nice oak desk, and the third got all the filing cabinets. Since they couldn't agree who would take possession of the building, which was bought and paid for, they decided to tear it down and divide up the materials: one person got the window panes, another got a pile of bricks, etc. Finally everything was divided up when they realized that there was one brick left. Each felt he should get it. Since they couldn't agree, they took the case to small claims court. Each lawyer presented his own case about who should receive the brick. After hearing all the arguments, the judge decided that they should have a contest to determine who should get it. Whoever could throw the brick the highest would get it. The first lawyer threw it about ten feet in the air. The second one reached close to fifteen feet. The third lawyer threw it so high, that they lost sight of it...and they haven't seen it since."
After a long pause, Trey asked, "So what happened to it?"
"That's the joke, it never came down. Nobody got to keep it."
"That's dumb." announced Shane. "I vote that Devin be banned from telling jokes for the rest of the trip. Even Trey’s knock-knock jokes are better than that.”
Encouraged, Trey began another one. “Knock, knock!"
"Who's there?"
"Kerch."
"Kerch who?"
"Bless you!"
After a few knock-knock jokes, Devin gleefully announced that he had another joke. Shane groaned loudly and rolled his eyes, but Devin pressed on anyway, insisting that this one was much better.
"It better be," Shane declared, "or you're walking the rest of the way."
"Okay," Devin began, "There was a lawyer named Tom who took a plane from LA to San Francisco..."
"Not another lawyer joke!" interrupted Trey. “Next!”
"Hold on! This one is a good one,” Devin insisted. "Anyway, he gets this seat next to a large man puffing on a cigar."
"Everyone knows you can't smoke in planes," Shane protested.
"Evidently you could back then," Devin retorted. "Anyway, Tom was allergic to cigar smoke and began coughing uncontrollably. Finally he grabbed a barf bag from the back of the seat in front of him and tossed his cookies."
"Sick!" exclaimed Trey.
"Why would he do that?" asked Olivia from her place in the loft. His sisters had been so quiet, that Devin had forgotten they were up there.
"He threw up," Devin explained. She still looked confused, but he decided to go on anyway. His whole reputation as a joke teller hinged on getting to the punch line. "Anyway, the stewardess came up and asked if he was going to be okay. He shook his head and explained his dilemma. She asked the big guy to get rid of his cigar. He rolled down the window..."
"You can't roll down a window on a plane," Shane pointed out. He seemed bent on making sure Devin’s joke was a failure.
"It's just a joke!" Devin announced, exasperated. This wasn’t going as well as he’d hoped. "So anyway, he rolled down the window and threw out the cigar. A few minutes later, Tom looked out the window and saw a bird sitting on the wing of the plane. Guess what was in his mouth?"
"Duh, a cigar," guessed Trey.
"Nope...a brick!" Devin announced triumphantly.
Nobody laughed.
"I don't get it," declared Olivia. "That's almost as dumb as your last one."
"It's just the second half,” Devin explained, perturbed that he couldn’t even get a five-year old to laugh at his joke.
"I still think it's dumb," Olivia decided.
"I’ve got a better one than that," announced Emily, finally joining the conversation.
"Go ahead,” Shane encouraged his younger sister. "It has to be better than Devin's."
“Yeah right,” grumbled Devin. He knew Shane was egging him on, but he wasn’t going to take the bait. There was still a chance that his parents would ban him from the hike, so he tried to ignore the barb.
"Okay, who stole the pig?" Emily asked excitedly.
"A thief," guessed Trey.
"No."
"A butcher," suggested Shane.
"No."
"Shane," guessed Devin sulkily.
"No."
"The Pittsburgh Steelers," said Trey.
"No."
"How about the Pigsburgh Steelers?" asked Shane.
"Nope."
Ten minutes dragged on with the boys naming anyone they could possibly think of, especially family members, as the possible thief. To each of these inquiries, both Emily and Olivia gleefully shook their heads and said, "no."
Finally Shane exclaimed, "OK, Ems, you stumped us. Who stole it?"
"It ran away," she announced proudly. After an hour of fairly dumb jokes, that one stole the show; or at least ran away with it. Neither Shane nor Trey could stop laughing for at least five minutes. At first Devin felt dumb to be outdone by his kid sisters; but as he watched the girls beaming at their apparent wit, he couldn’t help but laugh too.
##
"In the meantime," Mom continued. "How about if we play a game to pass the time? Let's see how many different states we can find on license plates. I see California right in front of us."
"How can you tell?” asked Lindsey, peeking around her mom’s seat for a better view. “Oh, that's Uncle Marvin's camper."
"Hey, there's Nevada!" Amber called as a red sports car whizzed by. Since the boys had sequestered the camper, Amber and Liz had agreed to travel in the van with Lindsey, much to her delight. Her uncles, Arthur and Randy, were also hitching a ride in the back seat, next to Christina.
"What state is that red one?" Dad asked. He was driving and accelerated a little to try and get a better view.
"You just keep your eyes on the road," Mom admonished. "Let us worry about which states we see."
Lindsey’s mom wrote down the names of each state as they saw them. Every time a car would come into view, Lindsey would mechanically brush her long, light brown hair out of her face and crane her neck to read what the plate said. She tried her best to find new ones, but someone else, usually Amber, would invariably name them first. The list grew quickly at first, but slowed as duplicates continually popped up. In less than an hour, they had 18 - all of them west of the Mississippi River, except Florida.
##
Lindsey was getting discouraged. She found several new states at the rest stop, but it seemed like forever since their last one; at least half an hour. On the other hand, she had counted at least twenty California plates during that same time span.
"Well, we just passed a rest stop, so you'll just have to wait for a while," Dad informed her.
"I need to go to the bathroom!" Christina called from the back seat.
"Didn't you go before we left?" Brady’s dad asked impatiently.
"Yeah, but that was a long time ago," she answered.
"I'll try," Christina promised, but she was already wriggling around in her seat.
“Can’t you turn around at one of those roads,” asked Lindsey, pointing to one of the flat, street level byways connecting both directions of the interstate.
“I think those are just for emergencies,” Dad informed her.
“This is an emergency,” said Jared, who was sitting right next to her. He was scooting as far away as his seatbelt would allow.
“Then do something with her to help get her mind off it,” Dad suggested.
Jared though for a second, then belted out, "Ninety-nine bottles of pop on the wall..."
"Don't even think about it!" proclaimed Dad. “Unless you want to walk the rest of the way.
"Why don't we play the alphabet game?” suggested Brady. It was obvious he wasn’t going to get much reading done with all the distractions. “I don't think we've passed Zzyzx road yet."
"Hey, good idea,” said Jared. "There’s an 'A'."
“I want to play too,” said Christina.
“Okay,” said Brady, already searching for a “B.”
“How do you play?” she asked.
“Count the letters that you see to yourself until you’ve got them all,” Brady instructed.
“What comes first?” she asked.
“An ‘A,’” he said, mechanically, craning his neck to see the license plate of a passing car.
“What comes after ‘A’?” asked Christina, a minute later.
“B,” said Brady, who was already looking for a “G.”
“Hey, just like the alphabet song!”
“Exactly like the alphabet song,” agreed Brady.
“What’s a ‘B’ look like?” she asked.
“It’s the first letter in my name, remember?” he responded. But he could already tell that this probably wasn’t one of his best ideas.
“The line with two circles?” asked Christina.
“That’s the one,” Brady replied.
“Z, I win!” announced Lindsey, pulling her nose out of her book.
“How you get it so fast?” asked Jared.
She held up her book and said, “They’re all in here.”
"That’s not fair!" Jared protested. “You’re only allowed to use letters outside the car!”
“I was just teasing you,” Lindsey said smiling.
“What’s a ‘D’ look like?” asked Christina a minute later.
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