Slumber Party Power Plays

Gatherings are a difficult affair.  And despite some good formulas developed over the years, I still get nervous when I have friends over for a casual drink, BBQ, brunch, sit down dinner, quiz night or drugged up lock-in.  But no matter what goes wrong, things will never get as awkward as they did back in the day, back at those slumber parties.

Whether one on one or with a whole group, the slumber party had a bad tendency to become a power struggle.  Here are some of the big plays as I recall them;

Getting owned by Mum

Whether it was trying to roller-blade on the trampoline underneath the basketball hoop with the sprinkler on, or simply talking back, there was one line that your mum could always deliver to crush all the esteem and respect you had;

 ‘Stop showing off in front of your friends!’

No, actually I don’t want....oh ...I guess.

At a friend’s house.

Friend: Do you want a coke?

Me: Yeah.

Friend: Hey Mum! Nilo wants a coke!

Knowing the egg

Basketball was big in the 90s.  Huge.  And if you were lucky enough, your dad might have paved the fuck out of some grass so you could shoot some hoops and break some bones.  My friends and I each had a basketball or two, but it seemed nobody could resist the distinctly Australian urge to kick the shit out of them.  The result was that every basketball I handled as a kid had an egg – a bump of air pertruding from the sphere.

I knew my egg well, I could angle that irregular bounce sit right under the hoop for me.  But as for someone else’s, well I had no idea, and when you throw in cracks and uneven surfaces.....

A game of basketball was really about knowing the egg.  Understand the egg, and the power followed.

Forbidden Fruit

Particularly at group slumbers, some hard arse would always have to go next level.  Egging houses was big at first, then booze and cigarettes came in and egging went out.  Then once the booze and cigarettes weren’t so incapacitating, egging came back in.  But by far the weirdest of such plays (and I might be getting specifically male here) was porn.

I’m not quite sure why young boys watch porn together (or, indeed, why grown men don’t).  You learned things about the body, not least your own, that you probably weren’t ready to know.  There were a few rules though; pretend like you know what’s going on, and fast forward the bits with too much dick – that’s gay.  Get this wrong, and kiss your power goodbye.