Party People, Come On Get Funky!

Our house was the house where all of the kids congregated. We hosted birthday parties, pool parties, slumber parties, Back-to-School parties and Last Day of School parties, and Hey-I-Just-Want-To-Party parties. And quite frankly, it was a win-win for my parents and me. I got to reap the benefits of popularity and “cool points” that came with having the “party house” and they knew exactly where I was and what I was doing 90% of the time. But it is the other 10% of the time that I would like to talk to you about.

My parents were pretty particular about what parties I was allowed to attend. Therefore, when we got to go to a party it was really exciting. My friends would all meet at our house to get ready. Both bathrooms would be inundated with curling irons, hair gel, various kinds of make-up (including about 2 tons of black eyeliner) aerosol hairspray, and roll-on glitter perfumes (Don’t judge, it was the 80s). My room would be used as the dressing room with all of us dumping clothes in the middle of my waterbed (Again, it was the 80s) and mixing and matching until we all found that perfect blend of teenage naughty and nice. Once we all put on the finishing touches we started the fashion show for my parents. As we strutted and twirled, my mother would tell us we all looked beautiful and my father would offer critiques and do hair touch-ups (I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, he definitely was not gay! Not that there’s anything wrong with that).

On one particular Friday, we were headed to the Boys and Girls Club. They would occasionally host after hours parties from 7 until midnight and the coolest boy I knew, Jimmy, was the Dee Jay. (Despite my insanely obsessive crush on him for most of my adolescence, my parents trusted him implicitly. So if he was the Dee Jay, I got to go). My friends and I got there about 8:30 because no really hot girl shows up on time. (I feel that I should clarify that although I was a remarkably chubby child and an admittedly rotund adult, there was a brief window during my teen years, 1981 – 1984, where I was pretty damn hot! And then I got pregnant! If only I could have used my powers for good instead of evil…) Anyway, before getting out of the car my dad gave us “the speech”, don’t leave the party, don’t do drugs, don’t dance like whores, don’t show your boobs, and be out front at 11:30 (my dad NEVER let us stay until the end of a party).

When we got into the party it was already jumping. There were hordes of people dancing, a few dancing like whores. There were about a dozen little clusters of folks scattered around the gym whispering and laughing, and Jimmy and his “crew” were at the Dee Jay table. We checked in with Jimmy (the way we were supposed to) and began to work the room. “Hi”, “How are you?”, “Cute skirt!” - You know the drill. By 11:00 we were having so much fun. We were laughing and dancing and were well on our way to becoming Punchoholics. It had been an outstanding evening already so you can imagine how ecstatic I was when, at 11:10, Jimmy slowed the music down, and Rabbit (super cute boy from another school) asked me to dance. It was outstanding! We danced three songs IN A ROW and he kept breathing right in my ear!!! Then (damn it!) Jimmy, with a little help from George Clinton, sped it back up. 11:24. I rounded up the girls and we started saying our good-byes. By 11:27, we were heading for the door. Perfect timing!

And then it happened, Jimmy played Planet Rock (one of the best and longest dance songs of the 80s) and Rabbit grabbed my hand and pulled me back onto the dance floor and my friends followed suit. The song was really good (still is - Google it!) and Rabbit was really cute, so all good senses just danced right out of my mind. My girls and I were swinging, sweat was rolling off everybody. I don’t know if I will ever forget that sense of freedom and joy and the subsequent humiliation I felt when I looked up and saw my father. He was in a white tee shirt (about a size too small) and a pair of bright yellow sweatpants and sandals that highlighted his ashy feet. I froze. “I am soooo sorry Daddy. It was a reallllly good song and we just lost track of time”, I blurted out. He just smiled. Whew, I thought... until he started to dance. He said, “You’re right this IS a good song!” He kept dancing. My friends and I just stood there mortified. He kept shaking his hips in a way that no girl wants to see her dad shake his hips and his pants were sliding low enough that you could see the crack of his butt. But kids just kept high-fiving him and he seemed to be deriving some sick pleasure from our humiliation! We begged for him to stop but he just kept saying, “Wait, this is a good song!” He danced for 20 more very long minutes and then we finally all made it to the car. We rode home in complete silence and we were never… ever… late to the car again.