Teaching important life lessons

Saturday was supposed to be a pretty mellow evening...The Boy and I had a dinner date with Smoking Hot Roommate and The Rocket Scientist. Munchkin was going to stay home and babysit. Pretty simple, huh?

Well, The Boy woke up on Saturday with what has since turned into the flu. And since it was about 3 degrees outside all day (I'm lying, the high temperature was at least 14) he really didn't want to go out. When I called SHR to discuss this, she acknowledged that The Rocket Scientist wasn't all that fired up, either...he had a 6:00am plane to catch on Sunday.

She did, however, remind me that several of our most fabulous friends were planning to do some pretty serious clubbing, and that we could always leave the boys at home and go out with them. Our brainstorming also gave us one more great idea...bringing Munchkin. Winner.

Anyone who has read here for a long time knows that Munchkin used to come out with us all the time. To the point that she had favorite bars by about age 12. I'm sure that is far from the best parenting that anyone has ever done, but it was largely a result of us making do with our bizarre little sense of family. I was in my mid-20's, all of my friends were the same age, and that is what we did for fun...I didn't really have a lot of sense for what the parents of kids that age did to entertain their children, so I just did what worked.  So, she came out with us a lot...but it was always early and a little quieter, and she was generally around a lot of people that she knew and that knew her.

That stopped for two reasons. First, I don't spend as much time out as I used to, for pretty obvious reasons. But even with that, she reached an age where it was going to be impossible to bring her with us. It seems weird, but it is a lot easier to bring a 13-year old to a bar than a 17-year old (who looks 25...more on that later). To the proprietors, having someone in a bar when it is early and quieter is acceptable if it is clear that said patron is not trying to drink underage. No one could mistake my 11 or 12 year old sister for a 19 year old trying to sneak booze...so there was no likelihood that any liquor laws be violated.

That is no longer the case...now she looks like someone who may be trying to sneak in and drink despite being underage. So, while we haven't done it in a while, my guess is that the owners might be a little bit less accepting of her presence now.

This, however, would be different. In this case, we had no intention of sitting quietly off to the side before the place got busy...we were going out. The plan was to hit a couple of different places, do a lot of dancing, a good bit of drinking and cause some trouble. Which absolutely meant sneaking her in with us...or, more specifically, showing up a a group of nine girls, many of whom are unquestionably hot, all of whom were dressed and very clearly in a party mood.

One short black dress, some heels and a ton of eye makeup later, we had ourselves one very tall, ridiculously hot club-goer who would never, ever be mistaken for anyone under the age of 25. We also gave her some talking points...if anyone asked for an ID, tell them you forgot it, and then we would just leave with her and that would be that; if anyone offers you a drink, just tell them you are driving; if you meet anyone new, you are a senior at Northwestern, visiting your older sister for the weekend. And we that, we set out.

We had an alarmingly easy time getting her into the three places we went. Basically, we just sandwiched her between a handful of really hot, flirty, fast talking girls who kind of negotiated with the bouncers to let us skip the line, and then just waved us all in. Sure, it's bad security, but on a busy night, when nine girls show up, three of whom are married, and 8 of whom are between 27 and 32, I can see where you wouldn't stop to notice that just one of them doesn't quite match the others.

From there, we had a ton of fun. There was a lot of dancing and the single girls did a lot of boy-teasing, and just maybe taught their new protegee a couple of tricks, as well. Munchkin was definitely overwhelmed at first by the noise and the energy, but the whole bunch of girls (all of whom have known her for six or seven years at this point) took really good care of her, kept her on the dance floor and made sure she was having fun. It was loud enough that she didn't have to talk to anyone she didn't know;-) and there was always someone to steal her away anytime she seemed to be drawing the attention of someone she shouldn't have (read: boys).

She also learned some valuable life lessons from her wise elders...things that you can't learn in school: like "If a boy buys you a drink, only accept it if you watch the bartender make it, and he/she hands it directly to you," and "be wary of men with tie clips".

So we stayed out way too late, and some of us had too much to drink, but it was really fun, and it's going to be a night I remember for a long time. When I woke up four hours later with the girls (if I had known how sick The Boy was going to be on Sunday, I would have treated this differently) I was maybe not thrilled at all of the decisions I made, but the whole thing still make me smile.

One other thing that made me smile...seeing Munchkin roll out of bed later in the morning, clearly having fallen into bed before she took her makeup off. And I am not kidding, we put A LOT of makeup on her. The girls found that hilarious, and I can best describe the look as "a very, very angry clown." So, add to the list of lessons "No matter how tired you are, wash your face before you go to bed. Otherwise, your pillow will look like a pen exploded on it."

And mostly, "Always remember, you have the best big sister ever.":-)