The Sleepover...

   I was working with Pete today when he told me that his son had a couple of his buddies over for a sleepover. He said he told them,"Lights out at midnight." to which his son promptly replied, "WHAT!?!?  Pete said he says that no matter what he tells him to do- and probably would have said it if he said lights out at 2. He also said he really didn't care what time they went to bed but felt as Dad he had to say something.

    I started to reminisce about sleepovers I had as a kid. The smell of the canvas tent we used to pitch in the backyard for weeks at a time in the summer--sneaking out of it in our underwear, running around the neighbourhood and giggling our asses off until we eventually passed out. There was the time I stayed over at George Zenyk's house. He was this ultra- skinny kid whose Mom fed him pancakes every single morning of his childhood to "fatten him up." Needless to say he hated pancakes, all he wanted was a bowl of cereal-- he's probably 300 lbs now but I digress... The one time I stayed over at his place we stayed in these twin beds, the Dick van Dyke show type. The moon was streaming it's light through the window-- I looked over at George and I could see his eyes were open and the and the moonlight was glistening off the black orbs. I thought he was awake so I whispered his name, I couldn't sleep...only to be horrified to discover he was sleeping with his eyes open. His Mom said later he does it all the time but I never stayed over there again.

     As scary as that was there was at the time, there was a sleepover that is forever burned in my psyche as one of the most frightening moments (well more than a moment actually) of my life.

     My parents had these friends Bill and Grace who had two sons that were about my and my sisters age. These were the type of friends my folks didn't see very often and when they did they would bring said sons along... they're on the left. It looks pretty obvious but the blond was a little shit disturber- but likable... 

    The adults were downstairs in our "rec room" (more like drinkin' and smokin' room) doing what they did best... drinkin' and smokin'. Us kids were left upstairs to our own devices... eating way overly buttered and salted homemade popcorn and watching the "Late Show." (I was just thinking, maybe they were downstairs reenacting Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice...eww). Be that as it may I asked the kids if they always got to stay up this late- to which "shit disturber" replied, "We get to stay up 'til 12:30 aall the time." Sure you do. Anyway the movie starts and the night owls and my sister are all fast asleep on the couches and chairs in the living room and I'm left wide awake watching one of the most blood-curdling, unnerving movies of all time...I think it may have been my first real horror movie....

 

     Until that point in my life I had never been so scared by a movie and wondered where the moral support was from the kids that got to routinely stay up late-- as I sat absolutely petrified in the light from our black and white Electrohome. I probably could have just gone to my room but didn't want to miss an opportunity to stay up late and scare the bejesus out of myself. A little like a car wreck, you can't look away.

     To this day I've never done horror movies well and could probably blog about each of them but this sleepover was the first frightening movie moment of my life.