#37. My First Sleepover (Friday, May 15, 1998)

#37. My First Sleepover (Friday, May 15, 1998)

What was your best day…of spending the night at a new place for the first time?

On May 14, 1998, at around eight in the morning, at the Ottawa Civic Hospital, my brother was born. (And later that night, the final episode of Seinfeld aired.)

So, for the next few nights, my dad was going to stay at the hospital to accompany my mom1. And so, I would be sleeping over for the weekend at Mrs. Guo’s house – with their daughter Rebecca (two years older) and son Clark (two years younger) (#77).

But before any sleepover happened, I had a bit of an accident. While waiting in the line at the bus stop that Friday after school, I decide to pick my nose, then a moment later a stream – literally a stream – of blood starts gushing out. Now I was never one prone to nosebleeds, but this time it is uncontrollable. It feels like if I don’t hold my finger in there for dear life, all the blood I have is going to leave my system in a few seconds. It’s that bad.

I go to the principal’s office, they give me a huge stack of tissues, I’ve gone through all of them by the time I get back to the line. Fortunately, by now the blood seems to have slowed its flowing out. But both of my sleeves are just covered in blood. And since I don’t want to make a big mess on the bus, as the blood keeps coming I end up swallowing a ton of it on the bus ride home.

I get off at my bus stop. My dad is standing a couple of meters away, and, seemingly not noticing the dried blood on my face and all over my clothes, says: “Stop. Don’t move. We’re taking you over to Rebecca and Clark’s house for a couple of nights because I need to stay with your mom.” Which is awesome – I think, hoping he doesn’t catch on to what just took place. Then, this old lady from the neighborhood comes by with her dog, and she chats with my dad for about ten minutes or so while I’m just standing there feeling a disgusting mix blood and mucus pool up in my mouth. When they’re not looking, I kind of turn to the side and spit the giant ball of liquid onto the ground.

So my dad and I take off back to our house, then a few seconds later I turn my head around to see the old lady standing over that pool of mucus-blood and saying to her dog, in a highly concerned voice: “Oh dear. Looks like somebody had a serious accident with a lot of blood here.”

For some reason, that last quote turned what would’ve been a traumatic experience into a hilarious one.

As for the sleepover, my first ever sleepover, it just felt awesome in every way. The moment I step into their house, Clark runs down shouting to me about this new computer game they got, where you play as one of those female trolls2 with this special yo-yo power that you can use to kill enemies3 (the game turned out to be a lot of fun). Then, after dinner, Mrs. Guo takes Clark, Rebecca, and I over to the public (indoor) pool. Where, despite clinging onto the wall in the shallow end for most of that time (#42), I get my first experience of how irrationally cool it feels to be swimming while it’s dark outside.

On Saturday morning, we all go to this neighborhood yard sale, where Mrs. Guo randomly buys a giant vintage-looking train set for the discount price of $24. For most of that afternoon, five of us – her, Clark, two of Clark’s friends, and I – work together to try and set up the train tracks correctly, to no avail. Then, that night, Rebecca and I try for about ten minutes…and it’s done. And from there, the trains naturally become the only thing we do for the rest of the sleepover.

The only person who ever found out about my little accident was Mrs. Guo, who noticed blood stains on the sleeping bag and my clothes and took the liberty of washing all of them (while I was off playing with the trains). The last day, she just tells me, matter-of-factly: “I washed all your clothes because you had blood on all of them,” as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

And now, with all that sleepover fun over, it was time to go home. Where a new brother waiting for me.

  1. Which was more than could be said for the husband of this other woman whose room was next to my mom’s. Her husband literally left her the day their kid was born to go to the Ottawa Senators playoff game that night.
  2. Those creepy plastic figurines that were popular at some point, for reasons that I’ll never understand.
  3. Naturally, by flinging the yo-yo forward, killing the enemy; and then the yo-yo comes back to you.