The Middle

Three days of spring break...

that's all we tried to enjoy.

Visit my sister... Hit the water park...

I even remembered to tell Nancy donahue

to bring in our mail for once.

Just three days...

But no...

Frankie, I'm so sorry to tell you this.

You've been robbed.

Your whole house has been ransacked.

Can't believe we got robbed!

What kind of stupid robbers would rob us?

I hope they didn't steal my books.

What about my cross-country sweatshirt?

I knew I should have brought it. If they stole your books

and your cross-country sweatshirt,

they're the nerdiest robbers ever. Oh, my God. My nunchakus.

Look, the important thing is that we're all safe.

Let's just all take a breath and calm down

until we figure out what we're dealing with.

Oh. I'm so sorry. I came to bring in your "us weekly,"

and instead I brought you tragedy.

It's just so horrible.

It was horrible. 'Cause truth is,

the house looked exactly the same as when we left it.

I'm sorry you had to see your house this way, folks.

These animals have no regard for human decency.

But it looks exactly... don't scream. It's okay. We still have each other.

As you clean up,

keep track of what's missing for the insurance report.

Oh, no! They took my box of money!

And my Ferrari!

It was red. No, black. No...

Red with black seats. Glad you still got your sense of humor.

That's something no one can steal.

Anyway, we'll keep an eye out for your things.

Thanks. We'd appreciate that.

Uh, but don't take any time out from solving murders for it.

As Captain of the neighborhood watch,

I feel like I've let you down.

Uh, no, Nancy. The only ones to blame here

are the evil, disgusting lowlifes who did this.

Oh, no. That wasn't too embarrassing.

That's it. We're pigs. It's spring. We're cleaning.

I mean, I just don't know how it got this bad.

Starving!

A box? Okay. This is officially

the second-worst breakfast you've ever made. It's for cleaning.

What? You were serious? But it's spring break!

We're supposed to be chilling hard-core!

Chilling hard-core for 20 years

is what let all this junk pile up.

I mean, the police had to come. We're criminally messy. (Mike) She's right.

The cops are looking for the people who did this.

Technically, we're on the lam, so hop to. But I was gonna go to the copy store today

and copy all of my books in case we ever do get robbed.

By the way, I need 50,000 quarters. Okay, come on, you guys. This is gonna be way easier

than we think. If we all work together,

we're gonna be relaxing in a clean house by lunch.

Now let's start cleaning up the crap. Everything we own is crap.

Crap we use and...

Crap we don't use.

Now we're gonna have to be heartless.

If you haven't touched it in a year, toss it.

Oprah says we need to live for the life we're living today.

Be heartless. Got it.

We can't use this box for garbage!

This is the box my high chair came in.

Pay attention to the box names, people.

The inflatable foot bath is not "keep." It's "charity."

And I think the needy have enough problems

without drinking our expired cough syrup.

Aw! It's Brick's second grade diorama!

Mom! How can you just throw that out?

It's a beloved memento from your youngest son's childhood.

Brick, you remember your diorama, right?

Yeah.

Attaboy, Brick. Way to be heartless.

Mike, what are you doin'?

You can't put your coffee mug on the table.

It's a clean zone now. It's been inoculated.

One mug, one magazine, one backpack

is permission for the whole thing to go South again.

Oh, that's nuts. Me putting my mug down is not gonna...

My bed's done!

You had all these in your room, and you still watched me

eat pot roast out of a measuring cup last night?

Uh, you think you might need this biology book tomorrow?

Ha. Spring break. No school tomorrow. Burn.

What about next week?

I'm living for the life I'm living today.

Axl! You're really gonna give away

the "best brother" Oscar I gave you?

You beat out Brick for it!

It was an honor just to be nominated.

One word... Buddha-ism. I don't need things.

I can walk away from all this in a heartbeat,

even you guys. I'll just wander the earth as a peaceful nomad

doing good deeds.

Dude, mom, it's 3:00 and I'm still starving. You said we'd be done by now,

and it's getting worse instead of better.

Well, I can't make anybody lunch if I can't get to the fridge,

now can I? I say we clear one path to the fridge

and one to the bathroom, and call it.

You're right. This isn't working.

You know what we're gonna do? We're going full Oprah.

Everything goes outside in the yard.

Nothing comes back through the front door

unless you convince me that you truly love it and need it.

Sue, go outside. Mom!

As always, Oprah was right.

Things were starting to look a little better...

Inside.

Yep, I'm sure this is how Oprah spends her Sundays, too.

Where do you want this thing anyway?

I found a bunch of m80s. Let's blow it up.

Just put it on the curb. Somebody will take it.

Excuse me. I'm looking for oak street.

Oh, okay. What you want to do is turn left at the sign,

go three blocks, veer right, then make the second left.

Thanks.

Hey, I got a history test coming up.

Who was Abraham Lincoln's vice president?

Actually, he had two...

Hannibal Hamlin, then Andrew Johnson,

who became president after Lincoln was assassinated.

Sweet. Thanks.

Tell your friends!

Hey.

Did mom say you could bring those in?

Did mom say you could eat that candy bar?

I found it under the couch.

Why do you even need those stupid curlers?

They're broken anyway.

I've had them since fourth grade.

What, are you afraid

you're gonna hurt their feelings if you throw 'em out?

What? I-I was kidding. Oh, my God!

Sue thinks her curlers have feelings! No, I don't!

Really? What if I did this? No, no.

Ohh. Ooh. Stop it. Stop it! You're scaring it!

Scaring it? Oh, my God. This just gets better and better.

No. No, Axl. Axl, give them back! Give them back right now!

Hey. Stop! Stop! Stop! You can save one.

Which one will it be, Sue? This one?

Or this one?

Please don't make me choose! Look, look, I know it's silly,

but I used to put them in my hair in a different order

each time so that none of them felt left out.

I'm sorry, Sue. I didn't know...

You were out of your freaking mind!

Ugh! God, Axl!

Guys, stop standing around.

Come on now. There's no time for talking.

If we focus, we can finish by dinner.

All right. It's midnight. I'm calling this thing.

Everybody in. We'll finish tomorrow.

But what if somebody takes our stuff?

Then we'd be lucky.

But nobody took anything.

In fact, we woke up the next morning to even more stuff.

A cat carrier? We never had a cat.

Other people are dumping their stuff.

And we didn't finish that day, either.

After other people started dumping,

we moved the stuff from the yard

back into the family room. On the third day,

it moved into the kitchen.

By the fourth day, we all went a little crazy.

We are never gonna get rid of all this stuff!

You know what we have to do? We have to get rid of ourselves.

Seriously. We'll just walk away and live in a van.

Yeah, we'll just travel around the country and...

and learn about each other, and barter for things and food,

and not fill our lives with possessions.

Fill our van with love.

But this being America, in times of tragedy,

there's always someone making a buck off of it.

So to get the full cardio benefit at your age and weight,

your target heart rate should be 137 for about 20 minutes.

I.U. Has about 32,000 undergrads,

while Notre dame only has eight.

Thanks. Hi. I have that information for you about tupperware.

If you want to call me back, I'll be here till 5:00.

Then I have to take a bath.

Next.

Come on. If you're not gonna support my van plan,

help clear the stuff off the bed so we have someplace to sleep.

Hey, all this crap is your stuff, not mine.

All I got is maybe six things in that box over there.

I'm van-ready all the time.

Ooh, Mike only has six things. What do you want? A medal?

Sure. Give it to me, I'll throw it away.

Let me just see what six things made it into your special box.

Ohh. Floorboard from the I.U. Assembly hall

I gave you for father's day. That's nice.

"Sports illustrated" from when the colts won the super bowl.

Okay. "Pro-con riding lawn mower." What's this?

Oh, that's my decision list.

I do one for every big decision I got to make.