Last night, before I turned out the light, I was browsing through photos of a long-ago winter school vacation sleepover, and I woke up from a nightmare that had me shoveling out from under 77 inches of cream cheese.
I like snow, but that winter the storm dumped 16 inches within five hours—and it hit during the last night of my nieces' sleepover. We woke to howling winds, impassable roads, and sporadic cable outages. Seeing the blizzard, the four girls (ages 3–12) squealed with delight. I checked on my Valium supply.
Of course, expecting that their parents would be picking them up at 10 a.m., we were out of cookie dough, craft kits, and pizza. Wet mittens lay on the radiators, and boots were stacked by the front door.
Upon awakening, my husband barricaded himself in the bedroom with videos of the last 10 years of the NBA playoffs, and I was left to my own devices. My ace in the hole was my sister, who had also spent the night, and we began to outline a survival strategy to get through the day.
With all the negotiations, it took an hour to get everyone ready to play outside: "If you wear your hat, Auntie will let you play with her nail polish." "Emily, if you don't put on socks with your boots, I won't let you play Old Maid on uncle's laptop." "If you don't zip up your coat, I'll make you drink all your milk from last night's dinner." "If you don't wear your gloves, I'll call your mother."
They stayed outside for 8 minutes and 34 seconds and buried three garbage can covers while using them to slide into the neighbor's century-old Japanese maple. I added up the costs of their play when I heard the tree crack and witnessed my mink headband placed on Mrs. Frosty along with my $40 suede gloves.
With everybody finally settled by the fire, I rounded up the sundries for one last craft fest and hoped that ribbon, wrapping paper, pinecones, and glitter would produce quiet creativity. I then ventured outdoors to clear off the cars and keep up with the walks while hubby napped.
Fifteen minutes later, I walked in to find a glue gun oozing its contents on my Chippendale coffee table, two pinecones stuck to the toilet seat, and my sister yelling at a malfunctioning vacuum cleaner as she attempted to suck up the contents of three tubes of gold glitter.
It was story time by the fire, and the eldest read a favorite. Feeling drowsy, my sister and I closed our eyes while the little darlings crept to the kitchen to concoct their own sundaes. Even though the kitchen looked like a grenade had exploded at Dairy Queen, the sundaes were a success, and everybody gathered around the tube to watch the video I hadn't yet returned to the library: The Godfather, Part 2.
Dinnertime rolled around, and we adults opened a bottle of bubbly as the calls came in from the parents that the roads were passable and that they would pick up their sweeties by 7 o'clock. With that good news, my recluse husband suddenly became the picture of a devoted uncle, giving the kids donkey rides and even letting them load the dishwasher with him.
With their coats securely buttoned, we all hugged good-bye as the 6-year-old said, "We had fun Auntie, can we come back next vacation?"
"Of course honey," I assured her.
I'll be moving to Florida in September.
Humorist and freelance scribe Joyce Faiola is a consultant for the hospitality industry and lives in Connecticut. Her e-mail is JLFaiola@Juno.com
Cartoonist Bob Larsen is a professional artist in the Boston area.
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