Poor Chris.  He’s far too young to be workin’ for the weekend.  When other kids should be waking up on Saturday mornings and enjoying their cartoons, he is too busy soaking up every ounce of missed sleep he can get.  Going across town to attend the white school his mother prefers means getting about 10 hours less sleep than every other kid. Ironic.  I thought riding public transportation gave you the opportunity to get more sleep.

After a particularly brutal week, Chris thanks god it’s Friday because that means he can snooze away then watch his favorite movie, Rocky.  Unfortunately, his TV is broken so he’ll just have to settle for the slumber.  But his mother stirs him early Saturday with good news:  she and his father are going to go buy a new TV on sale.  The bad news? Chris will have to get out of bed and take over the laundry duties.

Unfortunately, going to the Laundromat on a weekend is like driving during rush hour.  Chris is now challenged with trying to watch his siblings while attempting to find an empty machine.  All this while fighting for a few minutes of ZZZZs.  Needless to say, everything goes awry during his brief catnap.  Drew forgets to watch for empty washers, Tanya spends the laundry money on soda and their pile of clothes goes missing.  Tanya eventually takes off after Chris unloads his anger on her.  Left with barely enough money to do the laundry, Chris is forced to consolidate the colors and whites to get the job done.  He then leaves Drew in charge while he goes to find Tanya.  Chris finally finds his sister at home but she refuses to let him in.  Chris exchanges a few more words with Tanya out of frustration and walks away.  Although Tanya is hurt, she finally starts to feel bad about how she behaved.

Meanwhile, Rochelle and Julius (okay – really just Rochelle) are busy trying to get that new TV.  When they find out that the $199 TVs are already gone, Julius wants to walk away but Rochelle wants to keep looking.  But when they find out that they could get a line of credit, Rochelle is really intrigued.  She loves credit and she had a history of loving credit.  Julius knows this history all too well and is a bit nervous about charging a TV, let alone the couch she now also wants.

Apparently feeling guilty for all the pressure she’s placed on him, Rochelle backs off and says to forget the whole thing.  If she put them further into debt, she would end up seeing her husband less because he would be forced to work more.  It wasn’t worth it to her.  Well whether it was intended or not, this show of love actually got Julius to do what he was no longer obligated to do – buy a TV on credit. Do women know how to manipulate or what?

So although his Saturday started off rocky, Chris finally got to end off his evening with a viewing of Rocky.  Yes – his sister was mad at him, but she decided not to rat him out.  And yes – the whites in the laundry ended up pink, but Drew smooth-talked an older woman into helping them out.  Now, if only Chris could have kept the clothes from shrinking…