One night, Tetra, Bee, and Venus Flytrap brought their pajamas and their pillows to The Penthouse, such named because A) I like to name all the places where I live, B) it was at the top floor of a three-story, three-apartment building, and C) it was a palace compared to my previous apartment, The Swamp. We’d expected some of the dudes to join for Slumber Party Madness, which is one of my most favorite things ever, but none of them would be crashing the the festivities that night, so all us gals were annoyed at the men folk for that and other various reasons (e.g., Tetra was mad at her honey, Alien, for buying us a case of warm beer because it was fifty cents cheaper than the cold one). And so, the slumber party was already off to a successful, man-hating start!

In classic sleepover fashion, we hung out in my bedroom, watching a crappy-quality VHS of music videos I taped off VH1 and MTV during high school circa 1998-2002. Bee put my hair in curlers and Tetra played with the electronic 20 Questions game, seeing what it would guess for each of us. (Bee and I were both “myself” and “soulmate,” Venus Flytrap was “soulmate” and “the human body,” and Tetra was just “celebrity”; she didn’t even bother with the second option because she felt the first guess was so spot-on.)

Then I accidentally spilled my Gin Gin (i.e., gin and ginger ale) on the rug, and so we busted out the wet vac and Venus Flytrap helped me clean it up. I’m like, “I can’t believe we’re vacuuming at a girly party!” (with curlers in), and Tetra and Bee corrected me: “It’s not vacuuming, it’s steam cleaning.”

We meandered onto the back porch to the sounds of Katy Perry leaking from the iPod dock. There, we brought up how we had yet to play Sex Dawn Dolls. Dawn dolls are six-inch Barbie-esque dolls from the ’70s, and when we were kids, Tetra and I would play with my aunt’s in her homemade wooden dollhouse and make the dolls bone on all the handcrafted furniture. At this point, the dolls were now in my possession, and they needed to see some action, in some way, shape, or form. Bee was especially curious, having never really grown up playing with dolls: “Is there a boy Dawn Doll? Can his name be Clint?”

We were then giggling ever so loudly about what words for our lady parts we didn’t like, like I don’t care for “lips” and Bee doesn’t like “labia” and Tetra doesn’t like “clit(oris).” Apparently, we were talking so loud that we attracted the attention of the boys next door, who appeared to be having a guys’ night on the back deck, and Bee said one guy was waving to us with his hands over his head like he needed to be rescued at sea. And according to Tetra and Bee, who were in view of them, they all crowded at one end of the deck to supposedly hear us better. I suppose I don’t blame them for finding us eavesdrop-worthy; as Tetra said, “I’m pretty sure if we screamed ‘clit’ into the night, we’d get a response.” But I got paranoid the boys would think we wanted them to come over so I scolded my friends for flirting with them (“LADIES!”) and ushered them indoors. (“No more cigarettes! Back inside!”)

Bee finished my hair, and I looked rather adorable in the curlers. Venus Flytrap lined up all her nail polish bottles in a rainbow, and I chose to put on a hot pink. Then, amazingly, I wound up spilling the nail polish remover in the same damn spot I spilled the Gin Gin, so I AGAIN had to break out the wet vac. I was like, “Un-fucking-believable!” but Venus Flytrap said, “No, completely, totally believable.” When I finished with the wet vac and went to put it away (AGAIN!), Bee suggested, “Let’s just leave that right there,” while Tetra asked, “What else can we try to spill on the carpet?”

I mustered up enough sobriety to attempt to make us brownies and chocolate chip cookies, but there were baking difficulties on the horizon: Everything refused to bake properly during the suggested allotted time. Eventually I got fed up with the brownies, said “screw it,” and started to just put them on the plate on anyway. Aghast with how I was practically pouring them out of the pan, Venus Flytrap took over and returned the tray to the oven, but even that eventually failed. So about twenty minutes later, I took everything out and we ate brownie poo and did not die of salmonella poisoning.

Finally, I showed Bee the Dawn Dolls and named one of them after her. While I was doing dishes, Bee approached me with one of the boy dolls (Robert, Clint’s twin brother) and he totally hit on me. I felt like a housewife, doing chores with my hair in curlers and watching my soaps. When I finished my 1950s women’s work, I showed Bee how to play Sex Dawn Dolls by using the Bee doll and Robert. She was amused how I sensuously moved the Bee doll’s hands into Robert’s open jacket and then down his chest, and I realized then that I’ve always played that way. My dolls always had foreplay!

I was narrating all the doll action when Venus Flytrap and Tetra wandered in, and they sat at the breakfast nook, snacking and watching the drama unfold as the redheaded Sarah doll (played by Bee) nearly walked in on the Bee doll and Robert doing it atop the dish rack (“…and then he pulled aside the crotch to her panties and—”). Real-life Bee showed great progress and understanding when she had the Sarah doll cup her hands toward her mouth to call out to the Bee doll. I almost passed out laughing, and we had to stop because Venus Flytrap and I got paranoid that we were disturbing the neighbors; it was 2 a.m. and we were wound the fuck up.

Eventually, around 4:30 a.m., the rest of us meandered off toward our sleeping arrangements, and in the morning, I realized I was the last one up. I met the ladies in the living room to learn that my cat Cartoon had slept atop Venus Flytrap all night. The gals encouraged me to finally take the curlers out, and we unleashed the power of a seriously ridic fro. Oh, sigh. Enjoyment all around. I can’t say enough good things about that evening. Being an adult is cool.

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