Why Can't Everyone Sleep in their Own Damn House?

Shopping Spree announcement! Kate Coveny Hood is our grand prize winner! And since that's the only kind of winner we have, congratulations to her! And thank you for everyone who participated. Thank god it's over now, right?

Anyway, back to the regular blogarinka!

This past Saturday my son had two friends sleep over at our house and I am now very publicly vowing never to let this happen again. Lest we forget.

I've made this same vow before and a few weeks later my son will ask, reminding me that he is the unluckiest kid in the world and that the one way to remedy this is to have friends come over and I will relent. That's why I'm writing this down now, so that I will remember it forever.

What was I saying?

First of all, I don't even understand why they call it a sleepover, instead of say, Nocturnal Conduct Prohibited Under the Geneva Convention. My only guess is that "sleepover" is shorter.
Second of all, Husbandrinka was bedridden with a cold, so I was in charge of supervising the sleepover. I am furious that I didn't come up with some ailment before he called the cold.

This is what the three boys did:

Played Wii.
Inhaled pizza.
Played Wii.
Freebased ice cream.
Watched Star Wars, part whatever while masticating popcorn at eardrum shattering volume. Also, they talked throughout the entire movie--telling the one kid who hadn't seen it before exactly what was going to happen next (I'm as shocked as you are they he didn't knife them or anything).
Also, and somewhat alarmingly, one kid offered to give the other two boys a massage during the movie, but since they weren't watching Star Wars: The Empire Goes Brokeback, no one took him up on the offer.
Told me that they weren't ready to go to sleep yet.
Told me that this sleepover sucks because I am making them go to sleep when they are not sleepy which doesn't even make sense and they've never heard of such a thing.
One kid cried hysterically because he made a mistake and traded his Star Wars Lego Wii game for some Wii game that is basically garbage. Naturally, I assumed that this was a recent trade, and launched into a "well, a trade isn't final for 48 hours, so I'm sure that we can get it back," speech, but he told me that this trade occured last June. What the fuck?
So then my son becomes his attorney or something and says things like "It really is unfair to him. Why should he have to live like this, without his favorite Wii game?" Which caused the original crier to redouble his efforts and makes the other, non-crying guest announce that he can't sleep under these conditions.

While this multiple ring circus from Hell is going on, Husbandrinka, of course, is watching a Tivoed episode of America's Most Wanted about a woman whose boyfriend killed her with a sword in front of her young daughter. Presumably the woman is no longer subjected to her children's sleepovers, although in what I assume is meant to be a heartwrenching scene, host John Walsh reassures the poor little girl that her mother is watching her (and I'm guessing America's Most Wanted?) from heaven.
So the crying continues and I finally decide that maybe my grandmother was right when she left me to cry it out by saying "the more you cry, the less you'll pee" so I say a cheerful "good night!" to the by now hysterical Greek chorus and go back to my bed where my new Vivienne Tam HP mini is waiting for me (it's a laptop, you perverts). I am happily typing this post when Husbandrinka says, "do you have to hit the keys so hard?" because my hitting the keys is louder than a re-enactment of someone being slain
by a samurai. I am about to start in on this issue, when the Sleepover Cries settle the issue of what is The Loudest Noise.

The Wii trader does not want to live without his game. He simply cannot go on. Of course my normal course of action would be to say that as soon as the stores open in the morning, we're getting him a new Wii game, but the two other boys are witnesses and I'm afraid that this will make me look like someone who caves. (Of course I am someone who caves, but I don't want to look like someone who caves). So, I take it down a notch. I tell him that I understand how upset he is, I hear his pain and that I will definitely talk to his mother about it in the morning. (Am I the only one who feels like she's doing hostage negotiating when talking to kids like that, by the way?) This seems to work and after choking on the mixture of his own snot and tears, he falls asleep.

After the sleepover, I am elated. And not just because my son was excited to have his friends over and had a great night, no. Because the other parents now owe me.