You did it.  You got caught.

 

Your best friend did it.  She got caught.

 

My kid did it.  Oh, he totally got caught.

 

Totally.

 

We left our house overnight and The Party happened.  You know, the pull-the-drapes-so-the-neighbors-don’t-see, call-in-the-masses and take-advantage-of-an-unsupervised- 24-hours kind of Party.

 

(I’m sure right about now Kristi and Schnidt are flashing back to our junior high days and howling with laughter.  Quite possibly Nancy is flashbacking to throwing up in my mother’s washing machine.  But I digress.)

 

Man, oh, man, these stories are so much more entertaining when someone else is telling them.

 

Naturally I became aware of The Party by the next morning.  The kids were duly distributed at friends’ homes and the house was supposed to be empty.  My oldest was leaving within hours after us for a work commitment.

 

Wouldn’t you know that work commitment had been cancelled?  Um, as a matter of fact, no, we didn’t know.  Because my son neglected to mention that.

 

Fortunately, my husband and I swing on opposite sides of the rage pendulum.  That’s a good thing.  We’d be on the DCF watch list for sure if we were both crazy pissed at the exact same time.  So while his fingers gripped the steering wheel during the two-and-a-half hour drive home and a steady mist of steam exited his ears, I naturally tried to offer perspective.

 

Didn’t we do it, too (because… doesn’t everybody)?  Didn’t we laugh, laugh, laugh when my sister walked in on teen Beer Pong in her own basement? Didn’t we kinda sorta expect this someday?

 

He seethed.

 

I reached.  Didn’t we have friends who would be relieved, even thrilled if their less-than-social kid threw a party?

 

He gripped the wheel tighter.

 

When we walked in, the house was empty.  The Guilty stayed away.

 

I expected to return to an immaculate home.

 

I did not.

 

Funny what make that rage pendulum swung back in my direction.

 

Apparently I’d shown my cards too soon with my litany of text messages to The Guilty (beginning with “REALLY?????”) because once The Guilty realized the jig was up ….  Apparently so was his attempt to cover up.

 

I found the curtains still closed.

 

I found the beer pong balls (that cackling you hear is coming straight from my sister’s house in Jersey).

 

I found the one (because hello, there’s always ONE) lone bottle cap wedged under the counter stool.

 

I found that every one of my towels was used for the hot tub.  (This ticked me off immeasurably since a few of my luxurious — cough, borrowed —  Carnival Cruise Lines beach towels have gone missing.)

 

I found the Red Solo cups neatly stacked … yet still sitting on the counter.

 

I found the bag of empties, smartly collected, yet (stupidly) placed in full view with the recycling.

 

I found toast still in the toaster, egg shells in the sink and overflowing dirty dishes.  (I’m fairly certain these have nothing to do with The Party but seriously.)

 

I found that The Guilty is either the dumbest kid in the stratosphere … or the laziest.

 

And I can’t for the life of me decide which is worse.

 

I tried to pin the coincidental breakdown of the washing machine on him. While the repairman worked, I sipped my coffee and told him my story, fully disclosing that I was anxious to see if the awful grinding sound was a haphazard load of hot tub towels gone awry.  When he handed me a sock that had lodged in the pump, my dreams of a magic bullet were squashed.

 

So I was steamed.  And there were consequences.  And it is very (VERY) unlikely that it will happen again (she says with fingers crossed and sister laughing).

 

But there were no damages.

 

And no police helicopters ala Project X.

 

And no Guido the killer pimp.

 

And nobody went running naked through my neighborhood (surely they would have been covered in fluffy cruise line towels).

 

And well, clichés happen.

 

 

I do love how stories like these bring out even greater ones.  On the Monday morning following The Party I went into work still reeling a little.

 

My laughing co-worker immediately told me her best story (for we all have one) of her brother and herself throwing ridiculous parties all throughout high school — until the one time it got completely out of control.  They met in the bathroom and made the decision to call the cops on their own party.

 

 

Called the cops on themselves.   How great is that?

 

See?  There is always a better story out there somewhere.

 

Always.

 

 Tina Drakakis blogs at Eyerollingmom and has been featured in Huff Post.  She appeared in the Boston production of “Listen to Your Mother: Giving Motherhood a Microphone” presenting her popular essay The Thinking Girl’s Thong and her work has been featured in NPR’s “This I Believe” radio series. That said, she still places “Most Popular 1984” on top of her list of achievements (next would be as the $100,000 winner on that home improvement reality TV show of 2003 but her kids won’t let her talk about that anymore). A witty mother of four, she takes on cyberspace as Eyerollingmom/Tina Drakakis on Facebook,  Instagram & Threads.  Her collection of essays, A Momoir, can be found  here (agent interest ALWAYS WELCOME!)