Slumber Party by Smartphone

You are never too old for slumber parties or silliness, as long as you have a smartphone and an unlimited texting plan.
This post was published on the now-closed HuffPost Contributor platform. Contributors control their own work and posted freely to our site. If you need to flag this entry as abusive, send us an email.

Yesterday, Lisa texted me and four other friends from Miami about a new restaurant and whether or not she should go with a certain young man. All five of us on the receiving end of that text agreed that she should go ahead and "open that can of worms." Last week, ,Jolyn shared her lunch menu while traveling in Madrid; we all salivated at the thought of mandarin bonbons. When my first post went up on The Huffington Post, I immediately texted these five ladies. It is a common occurrence for the six of us to talk by text daily and sometimes well into the night.

What do you call that these days?

When we were kids, it was called a slumber party. As a little girl, a slumber party was a major event. A fun time with your best girlfriends -- no boys and as little parental interference as possible. At my house, Mommy required an even number of girls. She firmly believed that if there is an odd number, someone always gets left out. Those were nights filled with the living room floor covered in blankets, more giggling than sleep and hours spent watching sappy movies or Night Tracks.

Of course, I have not had a slumber party in 15 or 20 years. My girlfriends, all of whom I love dearly, are strewn all across the United States -- Connecticut, Texas, Florida, D.C., Kentucky, Indiana, Virginia and North Carolina. Most are married and have children. So, the odds of a real sleeperover, even if we were in the same town, are low. These days, the closest we get to a slumber party are the occasional girls trips and celebrations for engagements, weddings and babies. Or so I thought.

On a recent Friday night, I realized that texting is the electronic version of the slumber party. Erin in Texas sent a group text to the five of us: one in Indiana, Florida, D.C., Kentucky and Connecticut. This text initiated a four-hour dialogue that covered dating, naming babies who have yet to be conceived, job interviews, kale, noodles, dudes generally, dudes specifically, hobbies, bacon bits, baby nurses, Honey Boo Boo, leather pants, cable television and soul mates.

That last topic consumed much of the conversation and prompted out-loud belly laughter, at least on my end. The soul mate discourse was pure nonsense; but with two marrieds, one committed and three over-30-and-single women, it was high-order silliness.

The next morning, Lisa provided the following hilarious and completely accurate summary of the conversation from the night before, by text.

I guess we have distilled that Andy Garcia and Jesus are Whitney's soul mates but you can only have one, so maybe Jesus is Whitney's homeboy.

I get Javier Bardem, (sorry, Penelope Cruz).

Rita gets every person ever to have appeared on Law & Order and the guy from Suits that nobody knows but me.

Erin's is John, Sheryl Crow and a bottle of bourbon.

Jolyn's is NOT kale, rather Reagan and JF.

The only thing better would have been if all of those women had been in my living room. The real-time nature of texting makes electronic conversations almost as easy and fun as the real thing and it is much less expensive than a plane ticket. The lesson? You are never too old for slumber parties or silliness, as long as you have a smartphone and an unlimited texting plan.

You have to keep in touch with your girls.

Popular in the Community

Close

What's Hot