There I was, packed into the family mini-van. My siblings and I were packed in there like a can of sardines. Ten minutes were left before we would arrive at my Grandfather’s farm. Just a few minutes earlier, my brother threw up and wet himself.  The car was starting to smell really bad, yet I was feeling super hungry. The long stretch of a thirty- hour drive was not proving to be worth it.

“I hope this is pays off,” I muttered under my breath.

As our family was pulling into the driveway, I noticed all of the purple peeling paint present on grandpa’s garage door, walls, and doors. Before I could utter my disgust, my father said “Well isn’t this just great!”
“Definitely!” my mom said.

Holding all of our bags, we knocked on the door. We waited a few moments until we tried again. After the third fruitless knock, my brother Max looked under the welcome mat. With a sickly flourish, he revealed a note. He read it out loud, “Welcome Murphy family. If you are reading this, I am probably asleep. To get in the house, simply go through the back gate and through the unlocked back door. P.S.  Be careful around the to tomato vines. They are infested with poisonous spiders.”

When my dad opened the gate, all I could see was black shriveled up tomato vines. There was no clear path to the back door.

“Well,” I started, “It’s official. We are going to die from poisonous spiders!”

“No we aren't. I’ll just pull these vines up for a few seconds while you guys run through.” announced the patriarch of the family, with determination glittering in his eyes. As he stuck his hands in the crunchy vines and lifted them up, my family and I did not hesitate in sprinting through the gap he’d created. When everybody was standing by the back door, I noticed a disgusting red liquid running down my sister’s forehead. At first I was under the impression that blood was trickling to her lips, but it was only a rotten tomato.

“AHHHHH!” my sister yelled. “Get it off! Get it off! Get it off!” she screamed. My little brother Nash promptly smacked her in the face. With a mumbled squeal she said, “Thank you,”

After that fiasco was over, we decided get in the house as quickly as we could, though once inside,  I heard I very strange noise. It was my grandfather snoring.

“I am never going to fall asleep for week if this snoring continues!” I exclaimed.

“Yeah! We don’t have to go to bed!” my little brother yelled so loud that grandpa began stirring.

“Who’s there!” said a scraggly voice. It was my grandfather who was FINALLY awake. “Well, who’s hungry?” he said.

“Me! Me! Me! Me!” shouted all four children.

“Good, ‘cause we are eating some gourmet hot dogs!”

The next morning I decided to investigate the dead tomato vines. Little did I know that my little brother followed me. As I was digging through the dirt with my shovel to collect a specimen, I heard little footsteps. “Oh boy,” I thought, just as I was clobbered in the head with a rotten tomato. “Oh-- you’re on, Nash!.” I quickly turned around with a tomato in my hand to throw at my brother. But, just as I threw the tomato I found out it was not my brother. It was my grandfather.

“Let’s do this. Attaaaaaaack!” he yelled.

“I can tell this is going to be a great week. Grandpa has a funn sense of humor!” I thought optimistically.