The Sleepover Report

You're likely to be aware that I had ended up as the the slightly reluctant but mostly nervous host of a sleepover at my place for K, my eleven year old, and A2, her friend. I'll call her A2 so that you don't confuse her with A, my fourteen year old. A3 doesn't work because you think I'm talking about an Audi, even more confusing as A2 is also German.

Friday's departure from work took me straight to collect the brace of eleven year olds from K's place. I did not pass go and I sure as hell didn't collect £200. I had probably spent close to that on a bag or two of chocolate flavoured goodies for them though.

Now I'm about average height for a Sri Lankan male, roughly three feet tall, which means that I've got quite used to most white people towering over me. I met A2 for the first time and looked upwards towards that area where you see planes, clouds and planets. Somewhere above there I saw her head. I shouted "hello" and did the polite Dad thing. K, looking a bit wary and sounding a tad nervous said

"Dad, I've told all my friends about it but you're not going to do the dancing in your pants thing are you?"

I assured her that it wasn't on the cards and that I'd behave, feeling uncomfortable but also proud that my underpants dance is rapidly becoming quite well known. Not as legendary as the whole twig in Naz Sansoni's navel episode but it's getting there. We loaded up the stuff into my car and set off. As usual I wondered and marvelled at the ability of you girls, even eleven year old ones, to pack the entire contents of a small town for a mere one night stay.

K was wearing her usual casual gear. These days it's a pair of skinny jeans, Converse All Stars, her My Chemical Romance T shirt and her My Chemical Romance hoodie over that. A2 had on some similar looking garb and I rather cleverly guessed that she was into the same sort of music and things. K had of course brought a CD for the four minute car journey and I was asked to play it. I say "asked" to give you an impression that I had some choice in the matter. Of course the reality is that I didn't, but you knew that anyway.

We drove for a while with an early MCR track blasting out through the speakers and all of us quite content. Then I became vaguely aware of some sort of grunting noise from the back. I turned the music down and asked for a repeat of the noise. A2 said

"I like your car"

Cool, I thought, though I'm fortunate to have a nice car and it does get a few compliments.

"It's much tidier than my car" she continued.

It struck me as a strange thing to say for an eleven year old, the whole "my car" bit. I hoped she wasn't one of those spoilt types who, at eleven, already owned a car, perhaps one that she drove on the farm at weekends or something. I developed a cunning line of enquiry that I thought would answer my questions.

"What kind of car is yours?" I asked

"It's a Zafira" she said.

I was happy and not just because I have several cousins called Zafira. It was also because I know that a Zafira is one of those dodgy Vauxhall MPV things. A middle aged person's car, one built for carrying lots of kids and camping gear. It's not a rock 'n' roll cool Dad's car. Not that I'm competitive or anything, but I think I was winning on the cool Dad issue. One for Sri Lanka, nil for Germany. Things looked good.

As we pulled up at my house they spotted a friend of theirs walking along the road. We got out of the car, they asked if they could go to the chip shop with P, the friend, I replied in the affirmative and off they trotted. Ten minutes later they returned with chips and friend. They marched up to K's and A's bedroom, sent a request down to me for tomato ketchup and brown sauce and they were happy for about half an hour. After that the friend left and K and A2 were hungry. Pizzas had been ordered and we steamed into those as soon as they arrived.

Now, in my small one TV and one sitting roomed house there isn't much space for doing your own thing without treading on each other's toes. So after dinner they wanted to watch a film and I left them to it. I went up to my room, feeling like I was a teenager leaving my parents to watch TV while I went up to do my homework, or pretend to. Every half hour I checked on them and would find more chocolate wrappers strewn around the floor and more remnants of things scattered around but all were happy. At some point I got a phone call on my mobile from
A2's mother.

It was a bit weird, she asked me if she could speak to her to say goodnight and then had a conversation in which she was very obviously asking her daughter about me, my house and whether I was ok, not deranged or something. I felt sorry for A2 and pleased that I hadn't done the underpants dance. I heard A2 say things like

"Yes he's very nice"

"Yes it's fine"

all in slightly awkward tones.

At around eleven the film finished and I sent them off to bed. I had expected several hours of them messing around and me telling them to go to sleep but fortunately this didn't materialise. With minutes of them turning out the light they were fast asleep and I had the prospect of waking them at 8AM to look forward to. Why? Because A2 had to go somewhere so was being collected at 8.45 AM. Old Mrs A2 had said to me on the phone that she was sure I'd be up at that time but I'd have to wake the girls up early.

I think you know what sort of words were actually going through my head. Ones like

"Fuckinell, I've got to fucking getting up at fucking bloody 8 on a fucking Saturday just to fucking wake up your fucking bloody daughter because she has to go trampolining or something."

What came out of my mouth were words that were just slightly different. Ones like

"Oh yes, ha ha ha, I'm sure it will be no problem, I'm usually up pretty early on a Saturday morning anyway."

I stumbled out of bed at the allotted time, made my toilet, then sat on it and did a poo. Then I showered, changed and knocked on their door to wake the girls. They were already up and on the laptop. Apparently the internet opens early on Saturdays, I guess it's probably run by Germans.

There was some frantic doing of make up and hair and things, then they were ready and we waited for the arrival of the parent. With the punctuality one would expect from a German the doorbell rang at roughly 8.45 and zero seconds. I opened it and tried not to choke, laugh or stare, in that way you try not to stare at a person with twelve toes and maybe a couple of extra arms.

There are three requirements for a woman to look good in skintight lycra clothing. They must have the body of an important female character from a Baywatch episode, they must have the looks of a Ferrari and of course they must have the skin tight lycra clothes.

As I opened the door and did the polite introduction bit I saw immediately that Old Mrs A2 wasn't exactly knocking on Pamela Anderson's door. In fact she'd probably fail in the audition for one of Tommy Lee's home videos let alone for an episode of Baywatch. She looked more like the Zafira she drove than a Ferrari, even one of the less attractive ones. I also noticed that she DID have a surplus of skintight lycra gear and that she was wearing it all in one go. Perhaps it was national wear all the lycra gear you can get your hands on day and I just didn't know about it.

Surely there must be a law about people like that wearing that type of outfit at such an early hour of the day, particularly a Saturday. I didn't know where to look and, when she apologised for the clothing, saying some line about going running or something, all I could do was say that it was ok and that lots of women dressed liked that for me. She laughed, I laughed and I tried to ascertain exactly why I had said such a thing. It must have been the combination of the pressure and my incredible wit.

She then made some half baked comment about the state of my front garden, along the lines of "I like your gardening skills", or something similarly sarcastic. Now my front garden is a total state these days but I've got a fellow coming out on Thursday to take care of it and I felt a bit aggrieved at Old Mrs A2's comment, it wasn't as if we were old friends or cousins or something and, being the archetypal Sri Lankan gent, I had calmly decided not to remark on the tightness of her lycra around the crotch area, tempted as I had been.

No, a less cultured fellow would have said something like

"Nice fanny, that lycra doesn't leave much to the imagination does it, have you thought about a Brazilian?"

But I kept my calm and composure despite her quite vicious and brazen attack on my gardening skills and of that I'm sure you're proud. She carted off her daughter after forcing her to say thank you. Me and K were left alone at this unearthly hour. We decided, or rather I decided, that we'd go the the local greasy cafe for breakfast. As we ambled to the cafe happily in our own respective worlds we spotted Mrs A2 jogging up the road. We laughed and headed to the cafe for our fry ups.

And that's the sleepover report.

Have a great week out there!