Frick's New Friend Sleeps Over

It was Frick's birthday last week.  We usually let him have a sleepover party because sleepovers are much easier on my nerves than an afternoon of chaos.  We can get away with inviting fewer children and mostly they just want to be left alone so they can play video games and make fart jokes in peace.

This year Frick invited his two best friends, Billy and Bobby, and this new friend of his: Dtmhnyddh.  (It's pronounced "Timmy").  When Frick came home one day with this kid's name on a piece of paper and a phone number under it I had to resist the knee-jerk response to dislike him.  It's not the name alone exactly.  You see, I knew his name was "Timmy" because for years he always played with Bobby every Thursday after school and the little shit made a big deal out of excluding Frick.  Frick would come home crying about how "Timmy" was being mean to him all the time.  For some reason they made up this year and have been buddy buddy lately, but given his past record I was inclined to be wary.

I thought maybe I didn't like the spelling of Dtmhnyddh's name because I was carrying around some kind of Mama-Bear prejudice.  Maybe this was one of those cultural/ethnic names and my white-bread ignorance was showing.  I met the kid's Dad, whose name is Dtyrrdhlblchr (pronounced "Trevor"), and since I generally attribute ridiculous baby names/spellings to the present generation I figured I was right about some cultural tradition.  Because seriously....do I even have to point out what's wrong with this?

"Trevor" called me up to ask for the details of the sleepover and, at one point, he said something that sounded like "There's a sleepover for me tonight, too".  I had no idea what to say about a grown man going to a sleepover so I tried to be polite, mustered some enthusiasm and said "Oh, uh...grownup sleepovers are the best kind!"  Which was met with an awkward silence.

"Uh....I said "Hfmnee", my daughter.  She got invited to a sleepover, too."

"Oh."

And that's when my anxiety kicked into overdrive and I began worrying and hoping that the words "grownup sleepover" made him think of a bunch of adults watching movies and getting drunk in comfy slippers and pajamas instead of this:

There won't be any sleeping at this party!

So, I don't remember much about the rest of our conversation except that I was suddenly all worried and self-conscious about the impression I was making on these people that I probably didn't like two seconds ago because of their pretentious names.  My head is a weird place to behold.  As a result I was determined to be nice to Dtmhnyddh and not give his parents any cause for concern that their son was spending time in my home.

That night, the boys all show up at once and they're hungry.  Dtmhnyddh was the loudest.  "I'm bored!  This is boring!  I wanna do something not boring!  Where's the food?"  (Really kid?  You've been here exactly five minutes.)  When I go in the room with some chips and root beer he starts talking at me.

"My dad doesn't like me to watch shows with swears in them."

"Oh."

"Not even if they're bleeped out."

"Really?"

"Because you can still tell what they're saying, you know."

"Uh huh."

"Is Frick allowed to watch that stuff?"

"Doesn't bother me, but then I think Frick knows better than to repeat those words just because he hears them."

After this announcement I realize just what I'm up against.  Now, instead of relaxing and leaving the boys on their own, I'm going to have to tippy-toe all night about what games they play and what movies they watch.  At age 11.  This is not good news to the Mom who curses like a sailor and lets her kids watch crime shows on TV.

As they're eating junk food and playing, I am in the kitchen making a pizza and eavesdropping.  They're making their fart jokes and giggling and out of the four of them, Dtmhnyddh is the most foul-mouthed.  He used the word "asshole" more in ten minutes than I do in a whole day, and if you're a regular reader of my blog you will know that's a lot.  Frick on the other hand is allowed to swear in certain company (ie. only amongst his buddies, and never around grownups or little kids) so he swore the least.  Funny how that works isn't it?

After eating pizza they spend some time playing video games.  I had to go in there and break up several fights.  They kept having loud pissing contests over which video games were the best to play, who was the best at playing them, who had the highest high score etc.  I resisted getting involved unless they resorted to name-calling (which was actually quite a bit).  After about an hour of this, I've had enough.

"Hey!  Who wants to watch a movie?"

They all like that idea and they unanimously vote to watch The Terminator.  I look nervously at Dtmhnyddh, and then try to talk them out of it.  I tell them it's too scary.  Billy had already seen two of the Terminator movies.  Bobby swore that his parents okayed scary movies for sleepovers.  What about the language?  I don't need to be hearing from anyone's parents about this.  No you won't, Mrs. Rotten.  Are you saying that because they won't have a problem with it or are you saying that because you aren't going to tell them about it?  It'll be fine, Mrs. Rotten!  And then the begging.  Please, please, pretty please?

I talk to Daddy about it and he suggests Terminator 2.  His arguments were that it's not as scary as the first one, there's a kid in it and that kid makes Arnold Schwarzenegger promise not to kill anyone.  Yeah, okay.  I remember liking that one when I was a kid so I was sold.  The boys were also very happy.

But before the movie a little about the cake.

Oh, look.  A sailboat.

Usually I like to go all out decorating Frick's cakes with candy but this year I was exhausted from birthday preparations so I just sprinkled the M&Ms on the cake haphazardly instead of spelling out his name or something with them.    But when we bring the cake out, Dtmhnyddh gets all loud about how it doesn't have exactly 11 candles on it and it doesn't say "Happy Birthday" and just what kind of a birthday cake is this anyway?  So I tell him if he stares at it long enough he'll see a secret message.

This prompts all four boys to stare intensely at the cake and then declare that they can totally read the secret message which, after some debate, they all agree reads "Happy Birthday Frick".  (As I'm typing this Frick is asking about whether or not they were right about that).  You'd think they would have got the joke after they saw Daddy and me doubled over laughing at them.  Ah, the innocence of childhood.

We put on the movie for them to watch while they eat cake.  Not too far into the movie I begin to have serious regrets.  It's been about 20 years since I saw Terminator 2 and it seems I forgot a few things.  Like this scene which happens about 20 minutes in:

So much for watching the language.  Frick, Billy and Bobby wouldn't shut up for the whole movie but Dtmhnyddh was absolutely silent.  It was the only time he shut up since he arrived.  He just sat there clutching his knees and looking terrified.  I keep stopping the movie and asking if everyone was okay and fast forwarding through some violent parts and reassuring them that the good guys were going to win and everything was going to be okay.  I had a sick feeling that I was going to get into pretty hot water with some parents here.

But after the movie the boys seem fine and nobody had any nightmares.  Daddy was staying up late working on a computer so I left him on night time duty because it was 1:30 am by then and I was dead tired.  Which turned out to be good because Daddy told me the next day that they were up for another hour or two making all kinds of noise and otherwise driving him nuts.  He crawled into bed by 5 am.

I was woken up by what sounded like an elephant stampede going down the stairs.  I looked at the clock and saw it was 7:30.  Every other year the boys manage to sleep in until 10 because they are up so late.  Apparently Dtmhnyddh is an early riser no matter how little sleep he gets and he made everyone else get up with him because he was (you guessed it) "bored".  Awesome.

There was no sleep to be had for anyone after that.  Daddy was trying his hardest but I would be very surprised if he managed to achieve REM sleep with all the racket they were making.  Dtmhnyddh thought it would be fun to stomp his feet as hard as he could whenever he walked.  I'm not saying this to exaggerate.  He literally lifted his legs as high as he could and put as much effort as possible in bringing them down impressed, I guess, with his own strength.  It took all of my own strength to resist throttling him.

"Hey, Dtmhnyddh, what time is your mom coming to pick you up?"

"I don't know!"

"I'm pretty sure she's coming to pick you up soon.  Maybe you should get your stuff together."

"No!"

Grrr.   I wander into the bathroom to brush my teeth.  In the middle of brushing, Dtmhnyddh's mom arrived.  I don't know why she thought it was okay to just let herself into my home shouting "Hello!" at the top of her lungs.  Maybe she knocked for a while and didn't get an answer.  It was 11:30 and she had no way of knowing that my husband was up all night working.  But still.  She walked right in my house, shouting.  And she continued shouting in conversation to her son.

"Come on Dtmhnyddh!  You have to go to your lesson!"

"WHY!?!"

"Because it's Saturday!  You have lessons on Saturday!"

"I DO NOT!!!"

"Yes you do!"

I quickly spit out the toothpaste in my mouth so I can hurry up and politely tell them to shut the hell up.  Dtmhnyddh's mom whispered the next two sentences in apology and then went right back to shouting at her kid.  In response, Dtmhnyddh somehow managed to get louder.

"SHUT UP, MOM!  YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT!!"

"Yes I do!  Don't you remember honey?  Every Saturday you and Hfmnee have lessons and then we go to the park!"

"I DON'T WANNA GO!  LESSONS ARE BORING!"

"Um hey, would you mind maybe having this discussion outside?  Please?"  (Nobody heard me.)

This continued for an excruciating five minutes as she loudly tried to convince him to put on his shoes which made him even louder and more abusive.  And that was when Billy and Bobby ratted me out.  They started prattling on about how they got to watch Terminator 2 and describing some of the more violent parts.  I had to stand there nervously sputtering about fast forwarding and the fact that they boys had already seen it and it had been 20 years since I saw it, etc.

The worst part?  When she asked what the rating of the movie was.  I wanted to slap myself in the face.  What kind of mother doesn't even think about checking the rating of a movie before showing it to a bunch of kids she didn't personally spawn?  Of course it's an R-rated movie!  Fail!

I mumbled something that sounded like "PG-14" and hoped like hell she wouldn't check it for herself.  Of course she's going to check it for herself.

And as I closed the door behind them, breathing a sigh of relief, I realized that the worst thing that could possibly happen is that Dtmhnyddh won't be allowed to play here anymore.  Sorry, Frick.

Winning!