Movie link: BIG directed by Penni Marshall starring Tom Hanks
Song: Girls Just Wanna Have Fun/Time After Time by Cyndi Lauper
Books: Goodnight Moon
It always seemed like such a great idea, the SLEEPOVER. You get to spend the WHOLE night with a friend instead of going home for dinner, or after dinner, or when your parents call and ask where you are. Sleeping over is partying for kids. Clubbin'.
Ideally, with the sleepover, there's a temporary suspension of rules: special food and extra TV, at the very least. A couple rounds of dancing in the living room to Supertramp.
As an amateur spy, I particularly liked the element of exploring other people's houses that sleepovers allowed. I typically spent a couple extra minutes in the bathrooms and bedrooms of my friends houses, looking through cupboards and drawers. I perfected the art of opening and closing drawers very quietly. One thing I noticed pretty quickly was how many pills my friends parents had. The only pills at my house besides Tylenol and 217s was the jar of salt pills my dad took when he got too sweaty. Some of my friends parents has some crazy pills. Heart and lung type pills. Given extra time I would crack a case open on the counter to see if there was little granuals or white powder inside.
Sleepovers always took a turn for the worse for me when the party gave way to bedtime.
Inevitably sometime around 11 pm an angry parent would intervene, force us into quiet sleep and no more giggling. For some reason the hulking presence of my friends' parents in bathrobes in semi-sleepy grumpy states terrified me. I wanted my friends' parents in crisp and respectable day wear. I didn't want to see them in slippers and bed head. It freaked me out.
And then of course I'd be forced to lie awake and unhappy in a strange bed. Waiting for dawn.
At my first sleepover, at Ellen Bing's house, in Grade 3, Ellen had a huge fight with her mom before we went to bed about where I was supposed to sleep. Ellen wanted me to sleep on the sofa cushions stacked next to her bed. Ellen's mom wanted me in the guest room. I did not want to sleep in the guest room but I also didn't want to fight with Mrs. Bing, whose voice was shriller than I was used to. Three minutes after the lights went out in the guest room, I decided I didn't like Ellen's house, which smelled like meat, and wanted to go home. I tiptoed downstairs and called my dad to pick me up.
Which he did.
At 4:30 am.
At my second sleepover, at my friend Sarah's house, which I remember smelled like what I now know was probably kitty litter. Right before we went to bed we watched Secret of NIMH and the song at the end made me sad and miss my mom. I lay awake in my sleeping bag on the floor thinking about being in a strange person's house.
This time I knew I was not allowed to call until 7:00 am.
I called at 6:37 am.
My dad arrived at 6:54 am. Sarah's dad made me some toast for the road (about 2 blocks).
I'm not exactly sure what this says about me aside from the fact that I was a very needy and potentially nervous kid, who did not like the smell of other people's houses.
I've always wondered what it meant to not be attached to spaces and what it's meant to not have a space of one's own. Or need a space like that.
I also wonder what was involved in that missing, that anxiousness I used to feel.
I guess I should also be pretty thankful I had parents that just came and picked me up at all hours. I think if I were a parent today I would make Grade 2 me walk the two blocks.