And to all a good night…..(tf)
Well, another Christmas is here and gone. When you’ve got kids you don’t really experience Christmas, you survive it. I have survived. Barely.
My girls are happy with their respective hauls, and are still too young to fully appreciate the financial carnage involved in procuring the booty, so that helps the mood around the house. We all spent quality time with extended family and ate like royalty. I got sick just in time but it’s the kind of sick that makes you feel not quite awful enough to stay in bed but pretty close….so I loaded up on drugs and tried not to sneeze and/or cough on anybody. It kinda gave me a built-in excuse to watch football and not be accused of being anti-social. So it worked out though my head still feels like it weighs 50 pounds and when I cough I’m making that lung-rattling sound that alerts all that I just pulled something nasty up. It’s a 3 tissue kind of cold. I need at least that many to blow my nose without creating an inelegant spectacle.
But enough about bronchial infections. Somehow we decided to cap off the Christmas thing by allowing our 8th grade daughter to host a sleep-over. With six other 8th grade girls. In retrospect, this seems like such a bad idea I can only speculate that I said yes to it when I wasn’t paying attention to the question. I’m told I did say yes, and events quickly overwhelmed me.
They arrived at 7pm last night. Packs of them. All wired on sugar and red-bull and weighted down with various electronics. I figured the basement was the best place for them. Less expensive things to break down there.
Time it took for them to break something in the basement? Ten minutes. They broke a chair. I’m still not sure how. I swear they used tools.
They also broke a chalk-board and called for a sweeper when a bowl of chips somehow ended up on the floor. A few of them had to change their shirts because they managed to spill soda on themselves. That or they managed to spit soda on each other. I’m not sure which is worse, but the end result is the same. At least they come prepared.
They decided they wanted to go for a walk around the neighborhood. Bad idea. Time it took for me to figure they were up to no good? Thirty seconds. They were found a few blocks away, lined-up across the road Tebowing and taking pictures of themselves to post online……all while making enough noise to alert the municipal authorities (Note to self. If you’re dumb enough to allow this many 8th grade girls in your house, don’t let them roam the streets). They were whisked away before the paddy-wagon arrived. And still, it’s only 9pm. They haven’t even started video-chatting with boys yet.
They ate everything. They don’t talk to each other like normal people. They scream. They don’t do things alone. They do them in packs. I sat on the couch watching the game and all of a sudden 5 girls would walk past to get a single cell phone from the bedroom. Even when they’re in the same room they endlessly text each other. And they don’t sleep. Ever. Later I tried to barricade myself in my room…..and could still hear them. Sounded like they were bowling. I went down to check. The room was dark except for a disco-ball, music was blaring, and they were dragging each other around the room by their feet and singing loudly and way out of tune. No musical prodigies among them. I doubt they even noticed me. The basement itself was unrecognizable. Large pieces of furniture that used to be on one side of the room were now on the other side of the room. I swear the walls were moved….but I’m chalking this up to shock and a low-grade fever. I’ll verify later if my nerves don’t fail me.
The last thing I remember was my daughter stealing the dog from the side of my bed at 7:30am. I had allowed her (the dog that is) to take refuge there.
It’s over now. The girls have gone home. My daughter is looking forward to going to sleep. All in all I suspect it was pretty routine stuff, all things considered.
Merry Christmas to all. And to all a good night without seven 8th grade girls in your house.
–Tom Flannery
Riding Both Rails 