I Hate Your Sleepovers, And Especially Your Mom
By CJ Hallman
Thanks so much for inviting me to sleep at your house. I never would’ve been able to fall asleep at my own house what with the comfortable and familiar bed, the lack of snoring, and the wholly reassuring thought that my own parents would be sleeping a few rooms over and would protect me if sex-offenders picked our locks or if ghouls arrived and tried to eat my bones. But seriously; while I understand the importance of the sleepover in normal female social development, I do have an issue to raise with you. That issue is your mom: I hate your mom.
For starters, your mom asks too many questions. Just because you and I go to different schools now doesn’t mean she has missed anything. I am still not popular, I still look like George Costanza minus glasses and plus hair, and the most thrilling event in my life this week was that at recess I got a pebble lodged under my toenail and then the nurse told me not to wear sandals to school anymore and when I went back out to the playground a sixth-grader with a rattail pointed at me and I sat against a wall and no one, not even the teacher, bothered to ask if my toenail was OK (it was). So please tell your mom to lay off. Your mom is a social climber and should go move to England if she cares that much about class. She should go have tea and crumpets with the Spice Girls and leave me alone.
I hate that every time I come over your mom drives us in her stupid Chevy Malibu to the Taco Bell down the road because if she drives long distances the cops might find the Boones’ Farm hidden in her Hawaiian Punch can, and also because she can’t cook any dinners, only sandwiches, which is lunch food. I hate that when we go inside she always asks me, “How many Items are you getting?” And then goes, “What, only two Items?!” And then insists that I order more Items. If you’d please tell your mom to shut up, I’ll even pay for the goddamn Taco Bell next time because my mom, who knows how to cook all sorts of things such as Hamburger Helper and Boboli pizza, always gives me five bucks before she drops me off at ya’ll’s stupid house. And just fyi, although each concoction on Taco Bell’s menu may share equal status as an “Item” in your mom’s utopian little world, in the real world everyone knows that in terms of fullness a Cinnamon Twists does not equal a Bean Burrito does not equal a Mexican Pizza, and so forth. Your mom is a Communist and should move to Cuba, where she’d probably starve because she’d only get to order zero Items as they don’t have Taco Bell there.
I wish when I came over that your mom would let us stay inside like normal kids. But no, she’s all, “Internet Time is up, Go play outside, Go jump in the lake, Wait I’ll go with you, Let me go put on my bikini!” We just ate Items from Taco Bell; does she want us to get a cramp and drown? Why does your mom even own a bikini? She’s a mom for chrissakes. Why does she always come sit on the dock with us and wear Oakley sunglasses with multicolored lenses and hum TLC songs and try to steer the conversation toward boys? “Ooh, look at that chunk of man meat on the jet ski,” etc. Everyone knows I am too shy to talk about boys in front of a mom and also I’m scared of getting chopped up in a jet ski propeller. Full disclosure, I am also still a little afraid of getting my foot sucked up by the vacuum cleaner, but I guess I don’t have to worry about that at ya’ll’s house because, based on all the Taco Bell wrappers haphazardly strewn about, your mom is fatally allergic to cleaning.
And look, I hate to even bring this up, but what is the point of having a 64k internet connection if your mom only lets you use it for thirty minutes per day? We have a snaillike 28k connection at my house and my brothers and I have killed many an afternoon physically brawling over who gets to download midis and play Literati on Yahoo!Games. Brawling. Last week, my youngest brother had to go to the hospital with a dislocated kneecap. But he’s a trooper, he lived, we didn’t have to talk about hunks or ride jet skis, and when we got home my mom cooked us macaroni with crunched-up Saltines on top.
Additionally: Why the heck did your mom give you that lip balm that smells like hot dogs? What kind of Easter Basket gift is that? I fucking hate hot dogs. Hot dogs taste like bologna burps. Hot dogs suck. I want to go home just thinking about it. How come your mom never just lets us use her make-up when we play pop stars? My mom always lets us use hers, but try telling that to your mom and she just says to go downstairs and watch TV and quit bugging her because she’s on the phone with the psychic hotline. Why does your mom always invite that stupid fat hippie neighbor and his fifteen-year-old son over, and why do they always bring their guitars and play “The Boxer”? I am tired of that song. Why can’t they play “Camptown Races” or “Red, Red Wine”? Why doesn’t your mom install a lock on your bathroom door? Or does she want people to walk in on you? If your mom likes TLC so much, then why does she always sing along to Christian music when she’s driving? If your mom loves you, why doesn’t she birth you some siblings? Or does she want you to die alone? Why does your mom let you watch MTV but not PG-13 movies? Why did she hang that poster on your bedroom wall of unicorns running through a big puddle? Why does she let you drink Surge, which makes people infertile? Why does she always laugh when Carrot Top comes on TV?
Sorry to unload on you like this, and I guess I really shouldn’t take any of your mom’s crap personally. It’s probably just that she is cranky on account of her botched shag haircut and leaving her wallet in the Wal Mart parking lot and finding out that her current lake-house husband possibly kissed and touched penises with the mayor in the city park restrooms. So thanks again for inviting me over, and please tell your stupid mom thanks for making me realize how much I like my mom. My mom is the best. The only thing that could possibly make her better is if she wouldn’t make me go to any more goddamn sleepovers at your stupid house.