Community: Real Life

House parties


Dani

Dani is an almost 19-year-old gap year student that spent most of her gap year going out, getting drunk, sleeping, buying handbags and doing absolutely nothing creative. Her aim in life is to become a journalist - or rich - preferably both. She claims to be an avid rock fan and spends lots of money building up her CD collection but actually spends most of her time listening to Britney Spears and singing into a hairbrush. She begins university in London this autumn studying a BA (Hons) Journalism.

It's every teenager's dream to be left alone with a "free house", but Dani has never been so happy to see her parents return.

We all like a good party don't we?

I love house parties as much as the next person. But after the chaos I had last week when my parents went on their summer holiday, I will certainly have to think twice before I decide to throw another one. I had organised it so well, right down to the last little details. I just forgot to take one thing into account. People at parties act like twats.

Not the usual: "I'm drunk so I'll steal a traffic cone, in true teenage style," twat, but more of the: "I'll slide down the stairs using this terribly expensive silver tray that I found stashed in a bedroom that was locked, that I broke into," kind of twat. AKA The Über Twat.

What is it about being at another person's house that makes people act up? Why must they inform the host they enjoyed the party by causing as much chaos and destruction as they can?

"There was tobacco and vodka jelly smushed into the carpet. There were cigarette butts in plant pots"

It had started off very civilised. Sensible drinks. People using napkins and paper plates to eat the cliché sausage rolls and mini pizzas. However there must be a point where everybody sheds this politeness and decides that it's more exciting to have a group pee over the neighbour's car than make polite conversation with your peers. It went from a mature, adult gathering one minute to tea time in the monkey enclosure at Marwell Zoo the next.

Take my friend. She is the mildest-mannered creature you could ever meet normally. When she gets a bit of Southern Comfort and lemonade down her neck at a party though, she could make a sailor blush with her vocabulary. At one point I found her having a go at her boyfriend, telling him he was "a useless f***ing ****" because he looked at another girl (it was actually a lamp). Not to mention later on, when I had to convince her that although it was summer, there really was no reason for her to take all her clothes off.

The clean up afterwards was horrendous; I was still finding bottle lids a few days later. I filled up 10 black sacks full of rubbish and fell down the stairs taking them out. Not to mention the bin bags leaking stinky bin juice everywhere. I had tried to lessen the blow during the party by running around putting coasters under drinks and putting empties in a bin bag. I didn't realise it at the time, but thinking about it now, I was acting like my mother. Eugh!

It was a race against time to clean up before my parents returned. There was tobacco and vodka jelly smushed into the carpet. There were cigarette butts in plant pots. There were leftover sausage rolls under the sofa cushions. But FINALLY, in the end, it was tidy. As my parents pulled in last night I looked around for any last hot rock burns that needed to be covered, any jelly stuck to the ceiling, anything at all out of place. I just about pulled it off. I was so glad to see my parents return I nearly strangled them with hugs and made them promise never to leave me again. It only dawned on me later that I move out in a month.

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Updated: 20/04/2006


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