I was having an IM conversation with my Chicago coworker yesterday, in which he said that his office was so jam-packed full of 25-year-old girls that there was a constant low-level hum of giggling and squealing going on. I said it sounded like his dream come true, and also just like a slumber party, and he responded, “Now you are just goading me…”

That started me thinking about slumber parties, and what a crazy social phenomenon they are. Do girls still have them? Are they just an American thing? Because for just about every girl (woman? young woman? I have no idea what I am) my age, they were IT, you know? EVERYONE of a certain age can look back on countless slumber parties. And the weird thing is that our parents let us have them at all. Did they not know that we spent half the night discussing, in detail, what base we had each gotten to?

I used to LOOOVE slumber parties. I think I still would, actually. I would totally invite all my girlfriends over for a slumber party if I thought that any of them still owned a sleeping bag. Girls, think of how much fun they were when we were 9, 10, even 13, and now imagine all those good times plus one very important addition you could make now: hookers and blow. I mean, um, vodka. Yes! That’s right, vodka.

Guys, I know a lot of you are always like, “Oh, women are such a mystery, I’m confused, you’re complicated, ack ack etc.” Then Sex and the City hit it big, and there was no more need for confusion. There you go! That’s what we talk about when we are together! No more mystery.

BUT. You still don’t know what went on when we were prepubescent. (Because at that point you didn’t care. You just wanted to, like, play with your Transformers and climb trees and, I don’t know? Masturbate? What else did you guys do at that age? See, we girls are mystified about you, too.) So I am going to reach way back in my tortured childhood memories and give everyone all a little breakdown of what happened when you got a bunch of little girls together in ONE BASEMENT. Dun dun dun!

1. The parents would give us enough food to feed the Trojan Army. Usually pizza. Accompanied by gallons of soda and vats of chips and stuff (this was right about the time that Doritos busted out the revolutionary “Cool Ranch” variety, wasn’t it?).

2. The parents had to leave us alone. Like, all night. They were probably sitting in the living room directly above our heads, listening out for any sounds of crying and/or ritual sacrifice, and this was fine, as long as they did not come down the stairs. If they ever did, things would get all deathly quiet and the girl hosting the party would be all, “Maaaaaaam, daaaaaaad…DO NOT COME DOWN HERE WE ARE FINE BUT THROW DOWN MORE CHIPS. Okay? Like, thanks? Okay.”

3. We would have a movie on, usually just in the background. I remember “Girls just want to have fun” as being a common one, and “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” was big when we got a little older. Of course, I was peculiar even then, and when I had a party I’d always put on “Haunted Honeymoon,” and all the other girls would be be all, “Um. What is this? This is, like, weird.” And I would just count to ten and dream of being all grown up and going to an out-of-state school where the people would undoubtedly be weird like me. (HA! As if.) Moving on.

4. Then we would all lounge around and talk about everyone we knew. All the girls who weren’t there, what was wrong with them, both personality-wise and looks-wise. (Let’s face it, we were assholes.) And more importantly, we would talk about EVERY BOY IN SCHOOL and rank them by cuteness. There was always a general consensus on this. Sure, someone’s number 1 was my number 2 and vice versa, but at that age no girl is really breaking the mold and lusting after the dark horse of the school. That doesn’t happen until high school, if memory serves.

5. From about age 12 or so and on, we would talk about who had done what with whom, and we would grill each other on how far each of us had gotten. This was always my least favorite part of the evening, because I was such a total dork growing up that no boy would get near me. I remember one party in particular, at the home of a girl who went to Catholic school, as did all the girls present except for me (I knew her because she lived in the neighborhood). Everyone there had gotten further than me. CATHOLIC SCHOOL GIRLS. Even the dorkiest girl there had been kissed, at least! And I mean girls, like maybe 11 or 12 years old. One total ho-bag had even been felt up. (This terrified me. I was still decades away from this, mentally.)

I remember we were sitting in a circle, and everyone was sharing the stories of all the boys they’d kissed, and it got to me, and I was totally mortified and had no stories to tell. I didn’t even know enough about boys to make up a story. What if they had asked me about supporting details? I would have been exposed for the total charlatan I was. So they were all like, “Oh that’s okaaaay, it’ll happen for you, don’t worry!” while they gave each other the raised-eyebrows look of HELLOOO, SPINSTER. Oy.

7. Also, at some point in the night we would paint each other’s nails. Some girls would have this huge steamer trunk-sized plastic makeup kit called a “Caboodles,” (remember those, girls??) and we would all lounge around and do our nails crazy colors.

8. Sometimes we’d put on music and leap about spastically. I can’t remember what we listened to. Probably Madonna.

9. Then it was time to eat again. Usually huge bowls of ice cream. Always, with the eating thing, you would eat a LOT, because even then we were junk food gluttons just like we still are, but you had to be very careful not to take any more than anyone else did. It was a very delicate balancing act. If it was obvious that you were eating any more than the other girls, someone would be sure to say something like, “Wow, you’re, like, really hungry, I guess?” And everyone would peer at your plate/bowl, and then at you, and you would be the Pig Of the Party. Which was totally not a good thing to be.

10. When it started getting really late (and what was really late back then? Midnight? No clue), we would all get into our sleeping bags and just lie around, still jabbering on about God knows what at that point. The parents would yell down to the basement for us to SHUT IT ALREADY, which only succeeded in our being quiet for 27 seconds, until someone rustled or giggled or breathed noisily (or, God forbid, farted), and then we would explode in a cacophony of giggling. This ritual would go on for about twenty minutes.

11. Finally someone would notice that one poor unlucky soul had actually fallen asleep. “Psst you guys! You guys! Jane is, like, asleep.” And we would all rush over and determine that, yep, Jane was asleep all right. And you know what would come next. Yes you do. One or both of two possibilities:

We would put her hand in a bowl of warm water for the night, or
We would put her training bra (which totally HAD to be the one with the little bow or little flower in the middle; personally I preferred the flower) in the freezer.

14. Finally we would all fall asleep.

15. In the morning, we’d have a healthy breakfast of Fruity Pebbles coated in chocolate syrup, Jolt cola, and speed, talk some more, and wait for our parents to come get us.

16. The parents would come, there would be lots of thank-yous and squealings and I’ll-see-you-Mondays! and one by one we’d be off. The basement would be covered in soda stains and Cheeto crumbs, which signaled that our work there was done. The parents, I assume, would retire back to their bedrooms, trembling in shock and post-traumatic stress syndrome, to gulp down aspirins and look back longingly on their days of being childless.

Anyway, that’s how I remember it. I want to hear everyone else’s stories because I bet there were regional differences to this stuff. Myself, I speak only for the “Maryland suburban area slumber parties circa 1998-1993” or so. Unless of course all this stuff is totally the same for each of you, in which case I speak for ALL OF WOMANKIND. But that is a long shot.

Have a great weekend, everyone!