Ever since we met in middle school, sleepovers have been a long standing tradition in our friendship. Staying up late to watch scary movies and gossiping about everything under the sun, while eating copious amounts of chocolate has filled our weekends with too many enjoyable memories to count.
But after four years of monthly sleepovers together, we had fallen into a monotonous routine. We always start by cooking an easy dinner — like noodles or rice — then proceed to eat it while watching either an animated princess movie or an R-rated action movie (there’s no in between). Next, we spend an hour trying to figure out something else to do, before we give up and promise to stay up late talking. However, 10 minutes after we turn off the lights, both of us are fast asleep.
In short, not the most exciting sleepover.
In order to combat our typical decision paralysis, we decided to follow a Pinterest-approved “sleepover bucket list.”
The first item on our list was to have a “try not to laugh challenge.” We scrolled through countless Reddit threads before finding a list that promised “hilariously corny jokes which will make you laugh.”
Then, we started the game where Madhura got to torture Tanvee — who had a mouth full of water — with bad jokes until she surrendered by spitting the water out. The jokes we found ended up being so bad that we only laughed at how terrible they were. Even though we were drenched by the end of the game, it was definitely a hilarious experience.
Next, we decided to take on karaoke, where it was immediately obvious that neither of us will be winning any Grammys anytime soon. Regardless, we pushed on, making it through about three songs before we gave up.
Following the karaoke debacle, we decided to knock out a couple of the online activities: BuzzFeed quizzes, meme-creating and writing fanfiction. The BuzzFeed quizzes were nothing new, since we had both spent countless hours letting BuzzFeed tell us our zodiac sign based on the desserts we chose during our particularly boring Zoom classes.
Making the memes was also a challenge since we didn’t know what we were doing . We ended up finding a meme creating software, where we ended up with some truly cursed images. As for fanfiction, what we came up with will hopefully stay hidden far in the back of Tanvee’s google drive.
Next up on our list were some other word games: “Truth or Dare,” “Would You Rather” and “Never Have I Ever.” Since both of us always pick truth, we gave up “Truth or Dare” pretty quickly. “Would You Rather” wasn’t any better — it was full of such inane questions, like “would you rather have hair for teeth or teeth for hair?” that we both immediately decided that the game was not for us.
Our favorite game was “Never Have I Ever,” which included questions like: “Never have I ever been in a tornado” (Tanvee lost this one), “Never have I ever been awake for more than 60 hours” (Madhura regrettably has), “Never have I ever lived in an area where there were more cows than people” (targeted at our friendly neighborhood Iowan, Tanvee) and “Never have I ever dropped my phone off a rollercoaster” (This one was for Madhura).
After our battle of personal attacks, it was approaching 1 a.m., so we decided to begin our movie marathon.
We settled on our first movie, “Step Up” — an awful rom-com starring 30-year-old actors playing high schoolers (a ballet dancer and a hooligan street dancer) who end up falling in love. Imagine every bad 2000s rom-com, smash all of the worst parts of them together and you get this movie. Somehow, the trashiness of the movie made it all the more fun to watch together, and we spent the whole time insulting the characters while making our friendship bracelets.
Next, we watched “The Breakfast Club,” a sleepover classic. We were both surprised since we had expected it to be a lighthearted comedy. Instead, we were met with a fairly deep commentary on the struggles of being a teenager. It was a good movie, but just one that you have to watch at a time of day when you are still able to form coherent thoughts.
After that, we decided to finish off our night (early morning by that point) by wearing face masks and watching the Pixar animated movie, “Elemental.” Despite its cute storyline, both of us lost the battle to sleep halfway through the movie.
Ultimately, our experience at trying to create a perfect sleepover routine enabled us to step out of our comfort zone and try a lot of refreshing activities together. Still, be warned: It’s never as easy as Pinterest makes it seem.
