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After traveling for four hours by car with two eight year olds who are best friends and who hate each other and insist on sitting side by side, a two year old who like to throw whatever he got his hands on, a four year old who needed attention, and a 12 year old who wanted to be 20, we were so glad to reach our motel by late-afternoon. The heat was oppressive and we thought that we could shower and take a nap before letting anyone know we were in the area. A nice shower, a cool nap, quiet kids….heaven. But thanks to cell phones, one of my brothers reached me just as we were getting situated in the rooms. Supper was in order and by supper, he always means a buffet of some kind or other. Trying to think of the most casual and lest expensive place to feed the herd, we settled on a chain steak house with a large buffet. (my brother only eats at establishments with buffets). There ended up being 15 in our party with 6 of the party being children so we were seated in a large room at a large table far away from the buffet. Being in the south, the selection consisted of crawdads, catfish steaks, catfish filets, whole catfish, hushpuppies, cornbread, Mexican cornbread, cabbage with ham, green beans with ham, pinto beans with ham, cooked greens with ham, French fries, mashed potatoes, fried potatoes, fried okra, fried squash, and some pretty tired looking green salad. Sweet tea was the drink of choice for most of us. If you’ve never tried to dine with 6 hungry children, you should give it a go. What an experience. It’ll make a man or woman out of anyone pretty fast. MH must have made 20 trips to the buffet, but I'm not sure she actually got to eat anything. After the two hour supper ordeal Motherhubbard and I were looking forward to the rest of the night being restful and quiet. But since our motel had an indoor pool, and in that area the only swimming that the mosquitoes would allow was indoors, everyone decided to come to the motel with us and swim as our guests. We were thrilled at the opportunity to host a swim party! But what can ya do? This is a once a year occurrence so we tried to be gracious. Well, MH was gracious. I went to the room and set up my laptop and told everyone I had an important phone call to make. I was so rude that the guest stayed only two hours. Of course, the pool was closed for the evening at that time, but at least they didn’t come up to the room to visit. I don’t remember going to sleep. I don’t really remember getting undressed and putting on my gown or laying down, but I do know that the well deserved sleep was too short for the day that was to come.