Sleepovers for Grown Ups

It’s New Year’s Eve, and The Mister, Phartacus, Slappy and I are going over to the friends’ house soon. The Epiphany friends from earlier this month, who will be leaving at some point. They are kind, mellow, thoughtful, funny people, and they have a spacious house and suggested we might like to spend the night. This sounds like excellent idea, and we’re going to decline it. We’re going to decline it because, since moving to Splendaville, we’ve had two New Year’s Eve sleepovers with Grown Ups, and both have been disastrous.

The first Grown Up New Year’s sleepover invite was issued by a family we’d gotten to know through the Mother’s Milk club I’d joined. The Wookies liked to think of themselves as the center of the social circle, and invited a couple of families over to bask in their largesse. Unfortunately, tensions that day were running even higher than usual, as the day prior their youngest, delicate, allergy-riddled child had fallen off the bed and broken her arm. Innately sensing danger, The Mister and I tried to back out, but they weren’t having it. So we went over to their house and the ill-fated boozing commenced. Mr. Wookie had never seemed to approve of me for daring to suggest that weekend after weekend of boys’ days out hunting deserved some comparable girls’ time. He also made it clear he disapproved of how I parented my child and that I didn’t unquestioningly take his advice on which route I should use to drive home. So evidently he decided a fun revenge would be to have a few drinks, come up and tell drunken me some outrageous lie about his wife, and watch me stagger over and repeat it. I can’t even remember the rumor he started, I just remember him pouncing on me the minute I asked Mrs. Wookie what on earth Mr. Wookie was on about. A bit later in the evening, Mr. Wookie decided The Mister was flirting with Mrs. Wookie.

Now, I don’t want to be uncharitable… Oh, hell, too late, right? Why beat around the bush. OK, not to put too fine a point on it, but there were several hundred pounds, several chin hairs, and two tiny piggy eyes on Mrs. Wookie. No chance of flirting, I feel pretty confident about that. So that made for another couple of drama-filled hours –- interspersed with mandatory hourly shots –- after we put the kids to bed. Thankfully, midnight intervened and the husband of the other fortunate couple distracted us by stripping naked and leaping onto Mr. Wookie’s ATV for a joyride around the property. I got some neat photos, then The Mister and I slunk upstairs to our assigned bunkbeds and got the hell out of Dodge as soon as dawn broke.

Grown Up New Year’s Sleepover disaster #2 occurred at our house a few years later. The Belushis were a family in our circle who also had two little boys and were eager to do something for New Year’s, so we invited them over, and somehow, the missus of Neighbor In Swim Trunks From Two Sizes Ago, (see also this) since NISTFTSA is a chef and was working that night. (I think he now chefs for the Splendaville prison, having been unable to play nice in any of the restaurants.)  Anyway, NISTFTSA’s missus is a big pothead, which turns out to have been a dream come true for Mrs. Belushi. The Mister and I had gotten a new mattress for Christmas, and had lazily thoughtfully put the old one down in the Toys R Us crack den playroom for Phartacus and Slappy to jump on for a few days. A couple of drinks later for me, and God knows what else for Missus NISTFTSA and Mrs. Belushi, those two were lying on the mattress watching the room spin and groaning like sated zombies.

Eventually Missus NISTFTSA stumbled home through the backyard and Mrs. Belushi pulled herself off the mattress, just in time for Phartacus, by now on an evening playdate and sugar-induced high of his own, (Not a pot-induced one, I would like to clarify. That was snuck outside while I was busy watching children.) to leap off the sofa, miss the mattress, and crack a molar. After we got the kid front settled down and bedded, I cracked a molar of my own on a popcorn kernel. At which point, apparently, the Belushis thought it would be the right time to suggest a few lines of cocaine. The Mister and I politely declined and slunk off to our new mattress, eyeballs bulging like the squares we really are. The next morning, as I watched my bedroom ceiling spin, felt my tooth throb, and groaned in zombie-like fashion myself, Mrs. Belushi bounced into the bedroom and sprang onto my new mattress, laughing and apparently none the worse for wear, to wonder what on earth was the matter with me. I had been out-partied for sure.

So even though the Epiphany friends, who are falling asleep on the sofa by 9pm most evenings, are not a thing like the sleepover friends of yore, The Mister and I agree we’ve had abysmal luck on the Grown Up Sleepover front, and I like them too much to find out if this year the guest of shame will be me. So the plan is to be home well before midnight, watching the ball drop if we can manage it, trying not to crack any molars or do anything disastrous. Happy New Year, and please wish me luck.