As a youngster, sleepovers were the highlight of my week. I used to beg—and I mean beg on my hands and knees at her feet—to get my mother’s permission to sleep at my B.F.F.’s house and would tell her she was the cruelest mother in the whole world and ruining my life should my meager request be denied. Nowadays, a twist of fates has induced quite the opposite reaction in me when I am proposed with the question, “Do you want to spend the night?”
Don’t get me wrong, I do love me some cuddlin’/spoon session every once in a good while and I still treasure pillow talk with my gal pals. But once I start dozin’ off or my contacts begin sticking to my eyeballs, it’s time for this gal to scoot on home. I don’t care how supposedly comfortable your bed is, nor whether you are male or female because this has absolutely nothing to do with me fearing a person of the opposite sex seeing me in all my glory the morning after. This goes far deeper and offering to make me breakfast in bed the next morning, though tempting, will not bend my will. More likely than not I’ll just show up the next morning bright and early demanding French toast and three strips of bacon on the side. Curious as to what has instilled this stubbornness in me? I’ll enlighten you.
Unless you have a giant fan, I won’t be spending the night. I have been conditioned to the white noise of a fan since I was nine years old when my sister informed me I breathe far too loudly for her to stand sleeping in the same room as me—unless of course there was a colossal fan blowing directly on our heads. So unless you happen to have an industrial size fan that will drown out drunken people walking home outside your window, your snoring/breathing and the unbearable sound of silence, I will not be spending the night.
I’m not doing the walk of shame. The chances of running into people you know on any ordinary day are slim to none on this vast campus. The chances of running into someone you know when you never made it home the night before raise to about 70-80 percent. In the broad daylight amongst citizens who have showered and made themselves presentable for the public, my bed head, smudged mascara and foul breath are not as acceptable as they are next to you in bed.
What if you’re a farter? If I’m laying awake (because you have not provided me with a fan) listening to the dead silence and willing myself to pass out and a toot suddenly slips out while your butt is backed up into either a) my rump or b) my crotch, I most certainly will lose all composure. Even worse, what if I have to pass gas? Now I’m forced to either uncomfortably hold it for the rest of the night causing terrible cramping in the depths of my bowels or let it rip and pray to God you don’t wake up/it doesn’t create a Dutch oven for you the next day.
My bed’s better than yours. This is especially true if you have a twin size mattress or do not even own a bed, which can mean two different things: either you don’t have a bed but rather a stack of blankets on the floor, or you don’t even have a bedroom of your own and post on the couch (Yes I have actually been asked to sleepover by someone who did not even own a bedroom let alone a bed). If I have a full-size bed with the most luxurious down comforter you’ll ever wrap yourself in, why in God’s name am I going to sleep with you on a twin bed, which may I remind everyone is made for ONE person? No thank you, I’ll toddle on home to my down comforter and bed fit for a queen.
If these reasons are not sufficient to convince you that my stubborn ways have some measure of logic behind them, I’m not sure what will. All I know is unless you can meet all of my nightime necessities and/or challenge me to a round of Dream Phone or Scrabble, I am most definiately not bunking with you. A number of people have asked me what I am going to do when I am married and have to share a room with my spouse. In answer to that question, first off, who says I’m getting married? And if I do, I have two words for you: separate bedrooms.
Feel sorry for the poor chumps who have to put up with Rebecca’s bedroom shenanigans? E-mail her your concerns at alt2@dailycardinal.com, and maybe you can convince her to change her ways. But probably not.
