Record your Life - 10th grade was all about a PARTY!

Ahhhhh...10th grade. That was the year I turned 16 - and I got to have a P.A.R.T.Y! Now, don't get me wrong - I had always had birthday parties but this one...this year stands out.

I had a group of really, really close friends in high school. There were about 20 of us who hung out at school, after school, at work and on the weekends. Our parents all knew each other (well, everyone knew my parents - my dad is a teacher and my mom has worked for the schools for 20+ years) so many times you could come to our house and find a whole gaggle of teenagers hanging around. My parents always preferred us (my brother and I) to hang at home with our friends than be out running around.

So this year in particular, I was able to have an evening party at our house and everyone got to come over. By the end of the night there was a broken picture, blood (but not from the broken picture), trampled plants and newspaper EVERYWHERE. We also had some tears, a fight and a break-up/make-up too (we were 16 - remember!?).

The night started off innocently enough. I don't remember it really. I'm sure we ordered pizzas and had them delivered and ate cake and opened presents. I remember getting a leather jacket that I had been dying for from my parents. I still have many of the birthday cards my friends gave me from that year - a girl only turns 16 once you know! The excitement really began when my two girlfriends B and T showed up.

B has two little brothers. Apparently they had spent the whole week prior to my party tearing the daily newspaper up into tiny, itty-bitty confetti type pieces. There was a whole black trashbag FULL of newspaper confetti. I swear - it took both B and T to carry that bag into the house (and T was no wimp - she was a shot put and discus throwin' mama!). It was FULL. Like - if you moved it just a smidge the bag opened a bit and a little piece would flutter to the floor. FULL.

So these two girls showing up with this big bag of confetti made the party go from laid back and calm to crazy in about 10 minutes. L (a guy friend who I started school with in kingergarten) grabbed a handful of confetti and stuffed it down B's shirt. Then another friend grab another handful and put it down another friend's shirt. Well before too long there were piles of confetti on the blades of the ceiling fan and the fan got turned on. Those pieces landed in the food and drinks and in people's hair and just about everywhere else. At one point D picked up a handful to put down S's shirt and she took off sprinting for my bedroom. Well, my door was shut so she kept running down the hallway. She ended up in my parents room (hiding by the bed...which my dad was sprawled out on watching TV) and D just threw that handful towards S. My parent's bed, their floor and their dresser was covered in confetti. It ended up in the toilet. It ended up IN the floor vents. It ended up in my bedroom and my brother's bedroom (both doors closed). It was outside. It was inside. It was in our clothes, our hair, our mouths. It was a mess!!! It was so much fun though!

Later that night, L and D decided to have a wrestling match. It was all cool until L threw D over the back of the couch (which was a "wall" between the living room and dining room) and D's foot hit the wall as he fell over it and a picture fell off the wall, breaking the glass and causing a bunch of us to just about die laughing because just 10 seconds before everyone was all loud and rambunctious but in that second you could have heard a pin drop.

Also at the end of our street is a creek (the road ended in a cul-de-sac) and there was a pipe that crossed the creek. Several of the guys crossed it and a few of the girls too - one girl fell though on the little path to get there and split her knee open. I was thinking the worst and expecting a trip to the ER but my mom fixed her up with a butterfly Band-Aid and she was good to go.

After we got back to my house from crossing the creek pipe some of the guys were being dumb and kept trying to moon those of us inside the house from outside (through the big picture window). Little did they know they were trampling my dad's hostas under that window. Needless to say - that was probably the thing that upset my dad the most about everything!

And then of course there was the drama that always involved 16-year-olds. A break-up and a make-up. To be honest...I was excited about the break-up 'cause that boy was CUTE. But M and N made up before the night was over and I was happy really because N was a good friend and I hated to see her cry.

For the next ten years, if my parents moved furniture (or when they bought new furniture and moved the old out) there would be itty-bitty pieces of newspaper confetti hidden away somewhere that fluttered to the floor and reminded them of the craziest birthday party I ever had.

This is my twelfth post with Mommy's Piggy Tales recording my memories in just 15 weeks. If you're interested in doing the same for yourself, swing by her place to check it out!


Click here to read my post from last week, where my ninth grade memories are all about a boy.