When I was in the 4th grade, one of my friends had a sleepover birthday party. Sounds quite normal, right? About 30 minutes after everyone had already gotten there, someone knocked on the door. It was a 6th grader whose parents were friends with my friend’s parents. It turns out that he didn’t have a lot of friends, so he got invited too. It only took a few minutes to realize why he didn’t have a lot of friends. He was mean and physical and would try to one-up everyone.
A little later in the night, we decide to wrestle with each other. Not the best idea, but we were kids, what could you do? That’s when the night took a dark turn. He punched one of the kids in the groin, so one of the other guys went up to him and gave him a swift punch to the sternum. He fell straight to the ground. For the rest of the night, this boy didn’t say a word to anyone and hid in the basement for most of the time. I almost feel sorry for him.
It was the early 1990s, and I was just a kid. I slept over at a friend’s house for the first time ever. The next morning we woke up and his mom made our cereal. The milk tasted sweet, even for my childhood taste buds. Something about it all seemed off. Just as my friend finished his bowl of cereal, his mom turned the bowl on its side to pour the leftover milk from the cereal bowl into a milk carton.
I was horrified. The mom then did the same with hers. I felt my face turn red with shame and embarrassment, and my stomach turn. Confused, I asked, “What is that? What are y’all doing?” He then said to me, “That’s our cereal milk.” As it turned out, his ENTIRE family poured all of the leftover milk from each bowl of cereal back into a separate milk carton, specifically for cereal. I drank this entire family’s backwash. It was awful.
A friend and I went to another friend’s house to sleep for the night. We were all goofing around, as most 10-year-old boys do, to the point our friend’s dad started yelling at his son to cool it down.
It was a little bit awkward and tense, and then my friend told his dad to “shut up.” This was a huge mistake. His dad then decided his son needed some old-school punishment and made his son pull his pants down. We were all in shock as he whipped him a few times on the bare cheeks with his belt.
I went to a girl’s sleepover when I was around eight years old. There were only three of us, but that was enough to cause a ruckus. Apparently, the girl’s dad put an audio recorder under the teddies on top of her cupboard when he came in to hand them out.
Imagine that. The entire night, we were talking about crushes at school and other things like that. The next day he played the recording out loud to wake us up, laughing, and listening closely to what we were talking about in front of us. Who would do such a thing?
I stayed over at my best friend’s house almost every week when I was in elementary school. Sometimes I spent the night too. Their grandmother lived with them, and everyone treated her like a burden, which was awful. They told me she was crazy and evil, but she was always very kind to me, and because I was raised to be nice to my elders, I was kind to her too.
One day, when my friend had to go talk to her mom in the kitchen, the grandma asked me into her room. I had never been in there before, and it was decorated completely differently from the rest of the house. I could tell she had placed an entire house’s worth of stuff into one bedroom. I can’t remember our conversation well, but she gave me a little metal bracelet and asked me to hide it from the family. I still have it to this day.
When I was 12, I slept over at what I believed was my best friend’s house. Her then 17-year-old brother played his music very loudly and then shook his junk in my face, which made me feel really uncomfortable.
My friend and her brother then tied me to a chair and made me watch a movie that freaked me out. After that, they proceeded to laugh enthusiastically when I woke up in the middle of the night screaming from a nightmare. I’m obviously not friends with her anymore.
I had a best friend who lived in a large house with a garage where his dad spent most of his time. The garage was immaculately clean and even had carpeted floors. There were fishing trophies and other mementos on display, and the brand-new fishing boat was always neatly kept there. One day, my friend and I got into a water fight with the garden hose and some super soakers, and we ended up bringing the battle into the garage.
We accidentally left the hose running and didn't realize it until my friend's dad came home later in the evening. When he saw the water and mess inside the garage, he became extremely angry and screamed at my friend and his brother. My friend's mom cried as she watched the situation unfold, and it took my parents an hour to come and pick me up as the yelling continued. It was a traumatic experience that I'll never forget.
I was supposed to spend the night with a friend who lived a few houses down from my grandparents. His grandfather worked as a facilities manager at an upscale apartment complex and offered to take us swimming there for the day. After dropping us off at the main pool, he said he would be back soon. However, the main pool was overcrowded, so we decided to check out a smaller pool on the property. We were having a good time swimming until my friend started a splash fight. Things escalated quickly, and he began yelling at me. He then tried to push me under the water, but I managed to break free and hit him in the nose. His nose began bleeding profusely, and he started cursing at me loudly. I got out of the pool and gathered my things, and as I left, people were trying to calm him down. He followed after me with his fists clenched, still covered in blood from his nose. It was a scary and intense situation. I made it back to the front of the complex and tried to find someone who would let me use their phone to call home, but no one was paying attention to me. They were more focused on the screaming kid, who was still following me despite being in a terrible state. Suddenly, his grandfather appeared and took him away through a door.
The grandfather later returned and asked me what had happened. He told me he had to take the kid home and that I couldn't come with them. Finally, someone allowed me to use their phone to call my parents, but they didn't answer. I had to contact my aunt, who wasn't able to pick me up for another two hours. The office wouldn't let me wait inside, so I had to stand around in the parking lot, still unsure of what had occurred. When my aunt arrived, we left. When I got home, I was scolded for being so far from home. A few days later, my mom went to talk to the kid's grandfather. She came back and said we couldn't hang out anymore. She explained that he needed medication to stay calm and that he had missed his dose that day. The entire situation wasn't my fault, and I never saw him again.
I was a sleepwalker when I was around seven years old. One time, I slept over at a friend's house, sleepwalked, and woke up in an enclosed space. I panicked and pushed my arms out in front of me, thinking I was pushing against a wall. However, it turned out to be a large bureau that was placed diagonally in the corner of the dining room.
As a result, I ended up knocking it over and breaking the plates, glasses, and fine china that it contained. It was 4 am when this happened.
When I was around 14, I attended a big group sleepover with my friends. The mother of the girl who was hosting it was very strict about health and said we couldn't order pizza until we had eaten the massive fruit platter she had prepared for us. No one wanted to eat it, so I decided to take matters into my own hands. I started gobbling down the fruit platter, shoving pieces into my mouth and swallowing them without chewing.
This platter was meant for about eight people, but I was determined to get the pizza we wanted. We ended up getting the pizza, but I got so sick from eating the fruit that I spent most of the night throwing up. I couldn't even enjoy the pizza because I was so full.
I had a big group of girls come around for a sleepover when we were about nine or ten. I slept in a tent in my garden. One of the girls brought my slightly special cat into the tent for the night. The cat was loving it, purring, and getting loads of attention from this girl.
He fell asleep on her. I woke up the next morning and found poop on one of the other girls’ hair. The cat had got up in the night, walked over to the second girl, did its business, and went back to the first girl and fell asleep on her again.
I went to my friend’s house for the first time, as she always wanted to come to my house, not the other way around. However, she had never told me why. I was about to learn the truth the hard way. So, I got there, and after the first hour, it all goes downhill. The parents had strict rules about eating at the table. They proceeded to insult me about my weight to the point I nearly cried. After that, they continued to ask me questions about my race and family.
By the time night came, I found out they had a lockdown rule in their house. We weren’t allowed out of the bedroom until morning. I didn’t know that and ended up getting lectured the next morning. I also didn’t know that I would be forced to attend their church in the morning before I could go home. That’s how I figured out why she always wanted to stay at my house and not the other way around.
I was at a typical sleepover—movie, video games, popcorn. When it came time to go to bed, I went into the bathroom, changed into my pajama pants, and walked back in to find my friend already in his bed and smirking. I didn’t think much of it, so I crawled into my sleeping bag and asked if he wanted to play some more video games. He threw open his blanket and I saw he was naked. The kid flashed me. I was understandably stunned and I said something along the lines of, “Put some clothes on.” He responded, “Nope, my house, my rules.” I was really uncomfortable by now, and didn’t want to sleep. He covered himself back up with his blankets and said he would put his clothes back on, which he did. I tried to shrug it off, and we played some more video games for a little bit, then turned off the lights and went to sleep. Not too long after the lights went out, I heard him rustling around, then getting out of his bed. He says, “I’m naked again,” laughs, and tries to lay on me. I shoved him off, and he kept trying to lay on me. A brief back and forth went on, and at this point, I’m pretty much yelling at him to leave me alone and go to sleep.
I heard him stand up. I thought he was going to leave me alone now. I was wrong—what happened next was the worst by far. I started to feel something splattering against my sleeping bag where my feet were. It didn’t take long for me to figure out that he was relieving himself on me. I told him I was going home, and as I’m trying to get out of the sleeping bag, he body-slammed me. I was stunned. As he went to jump on me again, I kicked him in the stomach as hard as I could, and he went down crying. I woke up his mom at around midnight and told her what happened. She went into the room to find her naked son on the floor crying and yelled at me to leave. I called my mom and waited for her on their front porch, as my friend’s mom was going bananas when she saw the pee on the sleeping bag and ground.
We were 13. Normally I would always stay at my friend’s place but this time we stayed at mine. My parents took us to the bar which was something people did at the time. My father decided to drink too much, and my friend and I were stuck in the bar from 8 pm until 1 am. It was getting pretty uncomfortable, so when my father got up to use the bathroom, my mom grabbed us and we ran out to the van. He came out screaming and banging on the van.
When we got home, we got some dinner and my mom went to bed. My friend and I decided to watch a movie in the living room, which I was never allowed to use. An hour later my dad showed up, just sat on the couch, and fell asleep an hour later. So we snuck off to my room and my friend’s parents picked us up to stay at his place. That was the last time I ever had a friend sleepover.
I was at my friend’s house when my period decided to show up. I bled through my underwear and pajamas ALL over my friend’s bed. I was mortified and too embarrassed to tell her. I cleaned up in the bathroom before anyone else was up.
Then, I made the bed before anyone could see it. I still feel so terrible and embarrassed about it almost 15 years later.
There were about six or seven of us at a friend’s house. It was a hot summer night, so we’re camping outside in sleeping bags. It’s pretty late and we’ve been messing around with each other all night, tossing little pebbles and running around dragging each other about in sleeping bags. Just as I was dozing off, I felt a nudge, but waved it off. Then, I felt a nudge inside of my sleeping bag and immediately heard a squeaky screech.
I screamed and everyone immediately panicked with me. I’m zipped up in a mummy-style sleeping bag so when I stand whatever is screeching is still wrapped in it with me. A quick-witted kid ran over and helped shake me out of the bag and a huge bat flew out. Thank goodness, it didn’t bite me.
I went to a sleepover for my mother’s friend’s daughter. I didn’t know anyone else there and was pretty shy, but I was down for junk food and silly movies. In the middle of the night, one of the other kids started freaking out and having an anger or anxiety attack. She was screaming about how everyone hated her and was throwing stuff everywhere. I stood up and immediately got hit in the nose by a heavy dinner plate that she had chucked like a frisbee. I fell backwards, hit my head on the window frame, and passed out.
I underplayed how bad it had been to my parents because I didn’t want them to freak out, so it was a week or so before my mom was concerned enough that my nose still hurt to take me to the doctor. A month later it still hurt, so I fessed up to how bad the sleepover had been. My mom took me to a second doctor, who within minutes had referred me to get x-rays and see the plastics team. They found that the bridge of my nose had shattered into pieces and cracked vertically down the middle. The impact had spread pieces into places they shouldn’t be, and because of the delay in treatment, it had started healing like that.
When I was eight, I had a sleepover at a friend’s house who lived in the woods. They were living in a dilapidated house on the property, while their proper house was being built. Unfortunately, this house didn’t have an inside toilet, rather, a long drop out the back. Even worse was that there was a thunderstorm the night I was staying over.
The rule was that I had to use the toilet before bed, but after one look outside at the rain, thunder, and their horse standing between the door and the long drop, I decided to skip that step. I ended up wetting the bed that night and her dad wasn’t too pleased with me. I remember her brother coming home in the morning saying, “Ah you’re the one who wet the bed.” My friend also told all of our other friends at school.
A friend of mine had a monster dump during a sleepover. It backed up the entire drain field, with poo-water coming through the sinks and the washing machine. We spent part of the night bailing water out of the bathroom window.
The next morning, we woke up to the sounds of a backhoe and my dad shouting. It turned out that my buddy’s poop was the one that finished off the drain field. The whole backyard had to be dug up and an all-new drain field put in.
It was around Halloween time. We spent the night playing video games and having a good time. As we were playing, I was eating a ton of chocolate. I was in bed at around 2 am, and began having a nightmare.
When I woke up, I needed to puke. I ran down a bunch of stairs to the toilet and started heaving away. As it turned out, I had also barfed all over the side of my friend’s spare bed and on the floor while I was sleeping.
I grew up with a girl a couple of doors down, who I considered to be one of my best friends. When we were about 10 or 11, she had a birthday party sleepover, and I was invited along with six other girls. We played games, did our hair, watched movies, and sang karaoke. Toward the end of the night, she told me, in front of all the other girls, that I couldn’t sleep over because she could only have six friends there. It was something she hadn’t mentioned until that point. I was crushed, but I packed up my sleeping bag and all the stuff I’d brought over and prepared to walk home.
But I didn’t even realize how bad it was yet. On my way out, I passed another girl who was arriving late to the party with all her sleepover gear in hand. I walked home in the dark and didn’t tell my mother what had happened. I played Monopoly by myself and pretended everyone else was there with me. My friend never apologized and I never said anything about it.
It began on Friday afternoon after school when I was in middle school. My parents weren’t available to take me, so my friend’s mom, who is a Tiger Mom, and who I had never met before, picked me up. We had to go pick up her younger daughter from school, and the mom told me she had to speak to the principal. The mom told me that I was not to speak, move, or even breathe too loudly. She told me to be quiet, or that she was taking me home. She snapped at me again in the car on the way to the house because I didn’t get the memo that I was supposed to be quiet the entire time. My friend and the other girl were at the house by the time the world’s most awkwardly silent car ride finally ended. Tiger Mom glared daggers upon our very mild greeting to each other and I only saw her once the rest of the evening. My friend was constantly looking over her shoulder and trying to maintain our teenage fun through whispers, as we were walking on eggshells.
It was more stressful than fun, so I was relieved when it was time to lock ourselves in the room for the night, where we were a little freer to talk and relax—or so I thought. My friend got a few sharp texts from her mom telling her to keep us quiet. How she even heard us, I don’t know. She was across their large house and downstairs. We were ridiculously quiet for three teenagers having a sleepover. The next morning, my parents were ordered to pick me up as early as possible. I was so stressed out by Tiger Mom, I was happy to leave without breakfast.
One night I stayed over at my friend’s house, and his dad, who was an alcoholic, was really angry and got angrier as he drank more. We could hear him upstairs swearing and banging stuff around, and stomping on the floor. After a while, he came downstairs and started yelling at my friend for something he did wrong. A few seconds later, he pushed my friend across the room hard. My friend looked like he was hurt badly. Then his dad came charging over and dragged me towards the hallway closet and threw me in there.
He told me to keep my mouth shut and to let this be a lesson for hanging around his son. A few hours later, the noise stopped. I tried escaping but somehow he locked the door and I didn’t want to bang on it because I thought he was going to hurt me. I just sat there crying for what felt like forever. Eventually, the door opened and it was my friend telling me to hurry up and leave. Luckily I didn’t have far to go to get home.
My friend’s mom was into all of those weird ghost hunting and Bigfoot shows, so over dinner, she made me watch one where people went around communicating with ghosts. I was maybe 11 and had never seen anything like that before, so I believed her mom telling me it was real. I also believed her when she said, “The silver tea set on the dresser is haunted by my grandmother. I’ve seen her ghost cleaning it at night.” Their house had a creepy old-style feel to it too, so I was terrified to sleep.
After I finally fell asleep. I was awoken suddenly by the sound of silverware rattling outside the door. I’ll never forget the feeling of being frozen in fear like that, drenched in a cold sweat thinking that great grandma’s ghost was about to waltz through the door. I’ve never been so relieved to go home in the morning.
My friend’s mom had complained about people flushing the toilet in the middle of the night. It was a small house and I was little, so I thought, “Ok just don’t flush in the middle of the night.” However, on different occasions, she complained about kids not flushing the toilet. I figured I just shouldn’t go to the bathroom while everyone was asleep. One night when I was sleeping over, after a late-ish night of playing video games, I tucked into bed no problem. It took me a while to fall asleep, and after about an hour and all the kids had fallen asleep, I realized I had to go to the bathroom. I didn’t want to disturb anyone’s sleep and get scolded with the flushing of the toilet, so I tried to fall asleep to no avail.
I considered going to the toilet and just not flushing, and hope no one knows it was me. I heard footsteps over by the bathroom, so I waited. This went on all night long. I scared myself into holding in an enormous poop for the entire night until morning around 6 am. Going to the bathroom after the insomnia it had induced was both divine and harrowing.
I had a sleepover birthday party when I turned nine. It was a huge deal for me. I was so excited and had been preparing for it for ages. Around seven other girls came over and we had candy and a treasure hunt and all the fun things you do when you’re young. An old friend of my dad’s was staying at our house that night and brought me a big box of chocolates as a birthday gift. We ate a few and then started playing games outside, leaving the open box unattended in the dining room.
My two large dogs ate the entire box. By the time this was discovered, my dad and his friend had left to grab a drink together, leaving my mom alone with eight little girls, a toddler, and two extremely ill dogs. She couldn’t load us all in the car to take the dogs to the emergency vet, so I had to help her pour hydrogen peroxide down their throats to make them puke. The rest of the night was punctuated by the sounds of the dogs throwing up in the backyard. Several girls asked to call their parents and go home.
I was at a sleepover where a bunch of eight-year-old boys decided it would be smart to throw objects at each other in the dark. I picked up a shoe and threw it at someone only to immediately hear crying. When the lights went on, we saw this kid’s nose was now a blood waterfall.
His mother was furious and wanted to have everyone sent home, but the kid fought it, so we stayed.
When I was around nine or ten, my friend’s mom made us share a bath because we were both girls and it would save water. My friend seemed okay with it, so I didn’t make a fuss, even though internally I felt very awkward. Well, her mum ran the bath and it was just plain water.
No bubble bath so I could hide under the foam. We sat opposite ends of the bath with our knees up under our chins, awkwardly covering our bits. I was made even more uncomfortable by her snacking on a carrot and little tiny pieces of carrot falling into the bath and floating about.
When I was about 9 years old, a new kid moved onto the street and we became pretty good friends. We found ourselves playing video games way late at night, but I would always go home since I only lived a few houses down. One night he asked me to spend the night, so we built a fort in his upstairs game room using the couch cushions and blankets. Everything was fine until around 1 am. Everyone in his house was sound asleep, except for me. I was laying there in my makeshift fort when I heard the sound of heels on tile walking down the hallway, adjacent to where we set up the forts. The sound was so distinct and loud, that to this day I could not imagine it being something else.
The weird thing about it was that the floor in their house had carpet, so I couldn’t pinpoint exactly where it was coming from. I also didn’t have a phone at this time, so I was peering into the darkness through a crack in my fort when the walking sound stopped. After a moment of silence, it sounded as if it was sprinting in my direction. So I quickly hid behind the cushions when something knocked over the whole fort. This woke my friend up and he blamed me for doing it. To this day I have never gone back to his house to spend the night.
I was SO excited for my first sleepover at the age of 12, however, I was in for a surprise. The girl whose house I was sleeping at, slept with her nightlight on, which was as bright as normal light, and was also flashing rainbow colours. She also needed music to sleep (not soft lullaby music), and it was really loud.
I felt like I was being tormented. I could not get to sleep, yet there she was sleeping through it all. I went home the next day after zero sleep and told my parents I was no longer mad at them for not letting me have sleepovers earlier.