really, slumbering is the last thing i think about

When I think slumber party, sleep never enters into my mind. I hear music, see big bowls of puffed popcorn and smell chocolate chip cookies baking. And since my teen years (and maybe a bit before) I think boys and booze.

Slumber parties are essential to the girl growing up experience. My 9th birthday - it must have been because it was 1984 - was my first official slumber party. We swam, watched MTV, and launched ourselves off my parent's coffee table while listening to Van Halen's "Jump" over and over again.

At my 13th we watched scary movies, played "light as a feather, stiff as a board" and "bloody mary," and fried the ends of cheetos with the fire flickering from the candles we lit (it doesn't improve the taste). The following year - my freshman year of high school - a group of neighborhood boys found out about the party and spied on us and launched stink bombs to get us to run out of the house in our PJ's. Instead - they got my mom. A subsequent slumber party culminated in making burnt chocolate cinnamon ice cream (don't ask how we burned it) on the kitchen floor (with my little brother staying up with us) and laughing so hard my mom came flying out of her bedroom and yelled at us to be quiet.

Tomorrow night, we are having a slumber party. Sixteen Candles, Brat Pack movies, beer, boys, making postcards, giggling, karaoke, games, and maybe even some tarot cards or seances. Who knows?

Women will be girls. And I know someone is going to get her bra frozen.