Sleepovers

This is what I remember from my childhood sleepovers: The day I was supposed to go over to a designated friends house for a sleepover would be full of overwhelming joy and excitment. I would spend the whole day asking my mom how long until we left and make her help me pack and repack my dinosaur backpack. You never knew what sort of adventures awaited you at the legendary sleepover. An attack from a T-rex, a random exploding volcano that forces you to jump from rock to rock to avoid falling into the lava, a prince that begs you and your friend to help him defeat an evil witch who stole his kingdom who ends up turning you and your friend against one another as you viciously fight who gets to kiss the imaginary prince until the more genius friend with brown hair invents a brother to the prince who is equally as charming and heroic.
As soon as my mom dropped me off, my friend(s) and I would zoom around the house and yard with the spastic energy children are so privy to. After a semi-exhausting romp, we would go into the house and entertain ourselves until the sun went down. As soon as it did, the world seemed to transform into what people in the 60's probably experienced when they took LSD while playing Candyland (I hear this happened alot. Ask your parents if you don't believe me. If they deny it, you know they are lying cause no parent would admit to their child they ever did drugs or played Candyland :) Any food source in the house that had even a trace of sugar or saturated fat was devoured by our little mouths. In our elated sugar high, we would run up to friend's room or down to the basement to commence the ever thrilling episode of "Truth or Dare". Since I was a very socially capable child, "Truth or Dare" became a bit overwhelming due to the enormous amount of friends present at the sleepover. After a disappointing duet round of the game, my friend and I would decide it was time to tell scary stories. Scary stories generally lasted for about ten minutes until both of us were too terrified to even think of breathing. Our fear instantly drained our sugar induced energy high and it became high time for us to slip into our sleeping bags. This is where the real scary story would start for me. I would stare with eyes wide at the foreign place I was currently laying in. The dolls that only hours ago were my playmates became Chucky's demonic children. Shadows of monsters and ghosts began to populate the walls. The Hansen brother's images transformed from adolescent heart throbs to flesh hungry werewolves. I would spend the whole night debating whether to call my mom and beg her to come pick me up. When I would finally be released from the prison known as friend's house, I would be banned from ever having a sleepover again. Enough time would pass that I began to think a sleepover wouldn't be such a bad thing and the vicious cycle would start again.

Last night marked another sleepover moment. My dad, sister and I opted for a sleepover in my grandma's living room. We popped in a movie and all fell asleep within the first twenty mintues. I awoke a few hours later with an instant feeling of dying. I was sweating buckets as per I was in my onsie, my glasses were smooshed into my face, there was a witch laying in a lair of blankets on the floor beneath me and a dragon was snoring away in the arm chair. Since I had spent so many sleepovers vanquishing queens and dragons and rescuing sugary substances from evil clutches, I knew exactly how to escape from my dire situation. I hopped, skipped and jumped to the kitchen with relative ease and located the half gallon of ice cream in my grams' freezer. The dragon, also known as my father, found me nestled into the corner of the kitchen with my half gallon of joy just as the sun began to peak over the mountains. Thank you childhood sleepovers for teaching me all the survival skills anyone could ever ask for. :)