"Why is the floor all wet!" Richard didn't do well with crises in the middle of the night. He stood at the kitchen door swaying in his underwear and shielding his eyes from the bright overhead lights. His wife stood with a bath towel under each foot walking around the kitchen floor, mopping up water. His lanky son sat looking sheepish at the table in front of an enormous plate of pasta. When Richard squinted–he wasn't wearing his glasses–it looked as if his son's pasta trailed off the plate and over the edge of the table. 

"How did the spaghetti get all over the floor!" he barked. 

"Go back to bed," urged his wife. "We'll clean it up." 

Richard tiptoed through the kitchen avoiding puddles looking everything up and down as if surveying a crime scene. 

"You have school in the morning LT!" Richard paused by his son. "Why are you eating in the middle of the night?"

"I'm hungry," said the teen with a mouthful of spaghetti spilling out from between his lips. 

"Chew with your mouth closed!" said Richard. "Martha, what is going on!"

"He made himself some spaghetti because he was hungry," said Richard's wife, bending over and picking up the sopping-wet towels. She pushed past Richard and took them to the laundry chute. 

"Did you drop the pot?" Richard asked his son.

"No," replied LT. He looked guilty though. 

Richard walked over to the fridge and opened it, as if it would offer some explanation for the ruckus. Or maybe he opened it just out of habit. He took out a few pieces of salami and shoved them in his mouth. When he closed the doors to the refrigerator he looked at the wall beside him. 

"Why is the wall wet?" He became agitated again. 

Martha had returned to the kitchen with a fresh hand towel and started wiping down the walls. She glanced over at her son who gave her a stare that said, 'Please don't tell dad!' 

Richard realized he had stepped in spaghetti with one of his bare feet and shook it trying to get the smooshed pasta off. It was too much. Richard's temper boiled over. His son and his wife were always keeping things from him. "What happened!" he yelled. 

Martha looked once more at her son's pleading look. "I don't know," she said softly.

LT stepped up and faced his father. "Mom was too tired to make me pasta so she told me to make it myself. I didn't know how long to cook it for and I remember she had told me you can throw pasta against the wall and if it sticks, it's done."

"I failed to mention that you only need to throw one piece against the wall," said Martha.

Richard took three more pieces of salami out of the fridge, stuffed them in his mouth, scowled at his family and stomped back to bed.