Write about the last time you had a sleepover (read: spent the night at someone else's house!).

It wasn't the last sleepover I've been to, but it was certainly the most memorable. When I lived in California and my daughters were still young, I belonged to a neighborhood bunco group. We were all mothers in our late 30s and early 40s. Once a month, about 15-20 ladies got together on the premise of playing the dice game. In actuality there was more snacking, drinking, and chatting going on than dice rolling. We rotated spending bunco evenings at each other's homes but because there were so many of us, I only hosted the group once. Husbands and children, while not actually banished from the premises, wisely chose to make themselves scarce. Those were some loud, wild evenings!

Joann, one of the ladies in the group, decided to have a pajama party one winter Friday night and she invited all the bunco ladies. We were instructed to arrive in our pajamas and slippers and bring a snack and a beverage of our choice, either alcohol or non. Since nobody was leaving or had to drive, we were all free to indulge and the former choice was more in evidence. We wore a crazy conglomeration of pajamas and an even more amazing array of kooky slippers. Mine were giant pink furry monster feet complete with purple glittery toenail polish. A couple of the women even rolled each other's hair with those old-fashioned foam rollers.

Only about half of the bunco group could make it, so we had maybe 8-10 women at the party. Someone entertained the group by telling an embarrassing story that happened to her that day, and we were off and running. We decided to have everyone tell their most embarrassing story. Then we all told about the craziest thing we did in high school, the funny things our toddlers had said, and so on. Of course the more we drank, the more hilarious the stories became. As the evening rolled along and the cocktails flowed, many of us felt the need to stand and act out our stories, a hilarious sight in our flannel jammies and fuzzy slippers. We were all behaving like giggly teenagers who were out from under our parents' watchful eyes for the night, and it was a fun evening of leaving our cares and responsibilites behind.

I don't think everyone crashed until about 3:00 am. The next morning our hostess made pancakes at about 9:00 and we had some seriously hungover women sitting around the breakfast table. Every once in awhile, someone would begin snickering, remembering a particularly funny moment from the evening before. After breakfast, we all scattered to our respective homes to resume our responsible lives and our roles as efficient wives and mommies once again. But it was really a memorable evening of bonding and letting our hair down that I'm sure we all remember to this day.