Slumber Party

Submitted by: The Journals of the Meandering Muse

Childhood as I recall, was not always smooth and easy. It had many ups and downs and I don’t mean just the usual angst of growing up. My parents had a difficult, tortured relationship and family dynamics were fractured and ruptured due primarily to my father’s abusive, controlling personality. Given that background, I do have pleasant memories, of times spent together where life was as smooth as glass and things ran on an even keel. I don’t ever recall feeling ashamed or embarrassed at asking friends over and because my parents were both social in nature, it was only natural that my sister and I would open the doors to our friends as well.

There were times when I would have a friend “sleep over”. Generally in the summer after a long day of playing outdoors, where a swim in the pool extended to popsicles or ice cream cones doled out by my mother. That in turn would quite often evolve into an invitation to dinner and then I might ask if the friend could sleep over. It didn’t happen often, but there were occasions.

I had my first and only “slumber party” for my 14th birthday on a Friday night late in November. I was well liked in junior high school, I had friends, but I would never go so far as to say that I was “popular”. I didn’t have a “group” that I spent time with. I was always, and continue to be to this day, the one who made friends with everyone and went from this group to that. I never felt comfortable in a “clique” and I would have been horrified at the thought of leaving someone out.

I had decided that I wanted this slumber party, quite by accident. There were four girls in my class who did this often and never included anyone else. Just the four of them. And of course part of their joy in doing this was to come in to school on a Friday and talk about all the fun they were going to have at whichever house was hosting. And as sure as Monday follows Sunday, we all knew that they would be gabbling away about what they did, all the laughter with no regard for how the rest of us felt. The joy for them seemed to be in the exclusion factor.

I had my slumber party — I remember the pajamas I wore, I remember who came, I remember the fun we had in the basement talking about boys, using the Ouija board, laughing and shrieking. I remember my mother making us pizza and bringing us Cokes. I remember the boy I was so madly wild about and two of his friends hearing about the party and coming to knock on the basement windows and scare us within an inch of our lives. And the thrill I felt at knowing he’d do this — even if he didn’t know how I felt about him. Never of course for one minute giving thought to the fact that he might have had a crush on me too! We made banana splits and gave ourselves stomach aches and in the morning my parents made us pancakes.

A wonderful time was had by all — most especially in the giggling and laughter on the Monday morning. Giving the other four a taste of their own medicine was one of the sweetest parts of the whole experience. 

Submitted by: Cricket’s Hearth

Slumber parties were a right of passage growing up as a teenager in the 60’s. I remember my friends each taking their turn as host of the weekly Friday night sleepover. I was not always permitted to go as my overprotective mother didn’t like me staying overnight at someone’s home that was not a relative. However, in the fall of 1963, there was a slumber party that I will never forget. It is not just because I was the host of this particular Friday night bash, but because of events leading up to this fateful sleepover.

 

I was in the seventh grade in the fall of 1963. In the rural county where I was raised, each town had a small elementary school. Several of the elementary schools would be combined for a junior high and high school. My elementary school was combined with two other schools and we were bused to the small town of Clark for middle school. I actually loved junior high school. I was a good student and had straight A’s, thus the teachers always liked me. I tried out for and was selected as a basketball cheerleader. I was friends with everyone and enjoyed a somewhat “popular” rating despite being from a lower middle-class family. As a cheerleader, I was obligated to host a slumber party after one of the Friday night basketball games. All the cheerleaders got together to divide up the weeks and I was given November 22. It took some major coaxing, begging and promising to do all kinds of extra chores to get my mother to agree to my having ten to twelve girls over, but she finally gave in.

 

My friend Alice was sort of the co-chair for my slumber party. She helped me plan what to have to eat, what games to play, and even what topics we were going to discuss. As was the regular routine, we were to all meet after the game at the school and three of four parents would drive all the girls to the home where the slumber party was being hosted. My day finally arrived and I was so excited. I had cleaned and polished everything in our house. Even my mother got into making cookies and actually purchased Coke Cola for us to drink, which we rarely ever had. I arrived at school really proud of myself and looking forward to hosting what was sure to be the best slumber party yet. Little did I know, events would occur across the United States that would change all of my plans.

 

Being that it was Friday, the day of a basketball game, our school had a pep rally planned to get everyone into a competitive spirit. I think I enjoyed the pep rallies more than the actual games. We had more time to do our cheers and we always had a feature dance routine, which was my favorite. We entered the gymnasium that afternoon and immediately took center stage, lining up to do the opening cheer while the team came running in. As I looked around, I noticed several of the teachers looked like they had been crying. We cheerleaders were stunned to see these adults so obviously upset. We could not imagine what would have happened to have everyone looking like their best friend had died. We were not too far off. The principal took the microphone from Pat, the captain of our squad, and told us to all sit down. He then spoke into the mike and announced for the team to come in and sit down. What in the world was happening? This was not right, something was definitely wrong. Once the team was seated on the gym floor, Principal O’Donald announced the basketball game had been cancelled for that evening. We would not be having our pep rally. We all looked at each other in disbelief. Then, with a cracking voice, he told us President John Kennedy had been shot in Texas.

 

I would like to say I was as distraught by the news as our teachers, but that would be a falsehood. I was a seventh grade girl hosting her first, and more than likely last, big slumber party of the year. And to be honest, I barely knew anything about the President, and I certainly didn’t know much about Texas. Why should this event cancel our pep rally and our game? As I was considering all this, it finally occurred to me that if there wasn’t a game, how would everyone get to my house for the slumber party? That’s when Principal O’Donald announced everyone was to line up and go home on their regular bus – geez, now what was I going to do? All of a sudden, kids were going back to their homerooms to get their books and then to their bus. I remember standing in the middle of the gym thinking. . . wait, everyone just wait, we need to figure this out! But of course they didn’t.  I picked up my books and went to my bus where Alice was already sitting in our seat. She tried her best to cheer me up, but I was so upset, not that the President of the United States had just been assassinated, but that my slumber party had been.

Submitted by Jen’s Humble Opinion:

Slumber party.
Being the youngest in my family, I’m no stranger to slumber parties. Mom always let me have someone over. I’m going to share particular event that comes to mind. I had a friend over and we watched our very first horror movie ever. We were 12 years old and curled up in the same sleeping bag. We were hugging each other in complete terror. Closing our eyes at all the scary scenes. We were watching, (brace yourself, it’s just horrifying) Something Wicked This Way Comes. I have to laugh looking back on it because my children have both watched scarier movies than this at a much younger age.

I tell you, my friend and I were scared to bits! Then we hear a noise. We stop the VCR and listen. There it is again.
“I’ll go check.” I say bravely.
“You idiot, you never go check the noise.”, my cowardly (and wise) friend replies.
I turn to get out of the this sleeping bag that we are both squeezed into and there it is. A flash of light in the window, a mask! We both scream hysterically and back into the sleeping bag we go. Both of us yelling, “MOOM MOOOM” (everyone called my mom, Mom)

Mom walks in the front door with a mop and my brother’s hockey mask on it. “What’s the matter?”
We were laughing hysterically and tried to get her back for the rest of the night but we just couldn’t get her.