"On the road again," Luna sang, "I can't wait to be on the road again."
"Luna, we've been on the road again for two hours now," Lincoln pointed out, "can we choose please a different song now?"
"No way dude," Luna said, "I've got the auxiliary cord which means I choose the tunes."
"Well could you at least switch it up from Dad rock?" Lola asked, "maybe pop or punk or something classy."
"Okay, I'll change the music," Luna said, "on the condition that everyone has to agree on one music genre."
"Showtunes!" Lincoln said immediately with Lynn shouting "Hard rock!"
"Hip hop," Lisa suggested, prompting Lana to retort, "Cousin Liv isn't here, ya know?"
"Ooh, can we choose cowbell music?" Lynn Sr asked.
"I literally would rather listen to anything else," Lori chimed in, "maybe Disney music."
"Weird Al!" Luan yelled, prompting Luna to reply with "Not a chance, sis."
As you can see, The Loud Family is on the road for another family vacation. Lio is sitting in the worst seat of the van. Lio didn't necessarily like sitting in this seat, but every time there was a road trip of any sort, the siblings always argued over who would have to sit in the worst seat. To spare the family another debate (which came alongside the current debate regarding music (personally, if he had the option, he would've been playing one or several of Aurelio Voltaire's albums)), Lio volunteered to take the seat himself, much to his siblings' relief. As they drove down the road, Lio sat with his eyes closed, inner monologuing to himself as he blocked out the bickering voices.
"So the time has come for another family trip." Lio monologued to himself. "Perhaps if I was older, Mom & Dad would let me stay home. Usually the only thing I do on these trips is stay in the hotel room. Lincoln tells me that I should let loose and try to enjoy myself. I know that he's right, but I just can't enjoy myself when I'm amongst a crowd of-,"
Lio's own internal monologue was then interrupted when he heard someone else inner monologuing
"Sigh," Lucy inner monologued to herself, "as much as I love these vacations, I don't enjoy being confined in this van for hours on end, especially when it comes to arguments such as these. I guess it's a small price to pay for a week of relaxation and-,"
"Lucy?" Lio asked telepathically.
"Lio?" Lucy replied telepathically. "So you inner monologue too?"
"All the time," Lio answered, "especially when I can't draw. What do you think I'm doing when I have my eyes closed with that intense expression on my face?"
"I always thought you were just napping or meditating or something." Lucy replied.
"No, I" Lio started to say before both he & Lucy suddenly heard a third inner monologue.
"Man, I am really hungry right now." Leni monologued to herself. "After what happened last time, I'm still not allowed on food duty. I wonder how long it'll be until we stop for lunch. I could really go for a Caesar salad or a chili dog with some French fries and a-,"
"Leni!" Lio & Lucy said telepathically.
"What?" Leni replied telepathically.
"Wait your turn," Lio & Lucy told her with Lucy further elaborating "We were in the middle of our monologues."
"Oh, you guys do that too?" Leni asked.
"Yep," Lio replied.
"Given the look on your faces," Leni said "I thought you guys just had to go to the bathroom or something."
"No," Lucy said before saying "but you do have a point, I am getting pretty hungry myself."
"Hey mom, dad!" Lio said out loud, "do you think we could maybe pull over and get something to eat?"
"Yeah, now that you mention it, bro," Lynn said, "my stomach is making the rumblies."
"We've been driving for the past five hours," Lincoln pointed out, "I could go for something to eat."
"We still have another three hours before we reach our destination," Rita said, "so I supposed it couldn't hurt to stop at a restaurant to eat real quick."
"But where should we stop?" Lynn Sr asked, causing Lio and Lucy's hearts to sink into their stomach as they sensed another argument coming on.
"I think we should have Sonic's!" Said Leni.
"No Dairy Queen!"
"No White Castle!"
"Subway, I need my meatball sub!"
"So that you can give us all Dutch ovens for the next three hours? No thank you."
"Yare yare daze," Lio sighed as he facepalmed and sunk back into his seat at the same time Lucy uttered her catchphrase "Sigh…"
Fortunately for them, Rita stepped in to go stop the argument from getting out of hand.
"Everyone, that's enough," she said, "All of you need to choose one restaurant to eat at in the next five minutes or I choose where we're going to eat."
That seemed to settle the argument as the siblings all huddled together to try and work out an agreement. Finally, with one second left on the clock, they reached their decision with Lori being the one to announce it to their parents.
"Mom, dad, we have decided that we would like to eat at Denny's," Lori said.
"An excellent choice," Rita said, "it would appear that there's one coming up at the next exit."
And so, at the next exit, the Loud family pulled off and pulled into the parking lot of a Denny's. The place was moderately crowded, which made it likely that the large family of 14 would have to wait at least a few minutes before being seated. That was alright as there would be plenty to talk about during this break in the road trip. As they waited, Lio spotted a jukebox in the corner of the restaurant and instantly started wondering what kind of tunes they'd have in their playlist. He doubted they'd have Voltaire, but he wondered if they perhaps had bands such as Yes or The Bangles or Savage Garden. Questions that would have to be answered later.
Finally, after around thirty minutes of waiting for a table, the Louds were finally seated. After ordering their drinks and their meals, the siblings all headed to the restroom to wash up. Since there were only two of them, it didn't take long for Lincoln and Lio to freshen up.
"I'll catch up with you in a bit, onii-san," Lio said as he fist bumped with Lincoln, "I've got to check out this jukebox."
"You're looking for Roundabout and all the other JoJo EDs, aren't you?" Lincoln asked with a knowing grin.
"You know me so well, nii-San," Lio said with a chuckle and a shrug as Lincoln headed back to the table.
A few minutes later, Luan emerged from the restroom and spotted Lio cycling endlessly through the jukebox playlist. Curious, she wandered over to her younger brother and startled him when she tapped him on the shoulder and asked "Hey, whatcha doing?"
"Gah!" Lio exclaimed before calming down and explaining, "Oh, well I saw this jukebox when we came in so I was trying to see if this jukebox had the song Roundabout."
"JoJo, I assume?" Luan asked, also knowing her brother like the back of her hand.
"Yes!" Lio replied, laughing and asking "Get it?"
Luan giggled and said "Well good luck with that."
"Thanks," Lio said, still shuffling through the jukebox's playlist, "because I think I'm going to need it for all the trouble I'm going through trying to find." After failing to find the song once again, Lio exclaimed "Sweet Speedwagon, are you kidding me?"
"Hmm," Luan said, "let me take a look at that jukebox for a second, I wanna see something."
"Sure thing," Lio said, stepping aside and allowing Luan to shuffle through the jukebox.
"Oh my gosh, they have it!" Luan whispered in an effort to avoid alerting both her family and the rest of the restaurant.
"Have what?" Lio asked, peering over her shoulder.
"That," Luan said with an ear to ear grin as she pointed to a specific song and asked "What do you think of that, pussycat?"
"Oh my Jonathan…" Lio whispered before smiling an ear to ear Cheshire Cat smile himself, "we just need one more thing to make this opportunity absolutely perfect." With that, Lio began scrolling through the jukebox playlist once again, although this time it wasn't Roundabout that he was looking for. Finally, after a few seconds of searching, he found what he was looking for. "Why that's not unusual at all," he joked.
"Quick, how much does it cost for a play on this machine?" Luan asked, to which Lio looked and answered "Three plays for one dollar."
Luan then dug through her pockets and pulled out three dollars, asking "I've got 3, how much do you have?"
Digging through his own pockets, Lio found that he had four one dollar bills. "I've got 4."
"Lio?" Luan asked as she and Lio exchanged a glance with Lio asking "Oneechan?" in order to confirm that they were on the same page before smiling evilly.
Once the sibling duo had completed their deed, they returned to their table, where the rest of their family was waiting on them.
"What took you two so long?" Luna asked to which Lio said "Oh nothing."
He and Luan still had those shit eating grins on their faces, prompting Lisa to ask "What are you two so happy about?"
"You wouldn't get it," Luan said, she and Lio having to do everything in their power to keep from laughing.
Not too much later, "What's new pussycat!" Blared over the speakers, signifying the beginning of what would result in unimaginable chaos.