When did a party become this...

Hey everyone! Stefan here, and it had been a while since I posted anything, so I decided to share an incident that recently happened in my life....but first a little background info.

I graduated from The Ohio State University in June 2008, moved to Worthington (a Columbus suburb) and work in Dublin (another Columbus suburb). My girlfriend and two fraternity brothers of mine all live together in a nice house in Worthington in order to save a little money. We have all finished college in the past 3 years, and aside from my girlfriend, all lived in our fraternity house. With that info in mind....

My girlfriend and I decided to take my 4 year old cousin to the Circus. We had taken her the year before, and friends of ours wanted to take their 4 year old boy. The circus was in Dayton, so we knew it would be a late night. Partway through the circus my phone started buzzing; it was a text from one of my housemates.

"Hey, C*** wants to know if mom and dad are coming home tonight."

Because my girlfriend and I eat dinner at 6:30 and watch Jeopardy almost every night we've been dubbed mom and dad, even though we're the two youngest in the house.

"Yea we're coming back. It'll probably be late though, but tell C*** dad said he can go out with his friends. He can even invite a few over."

What I didn't realize then was just how late our circus evening would be. We intended to drop my cousin off at my aunt's house on our way back to Columbus, but it got so late that we decided to keep her overnight and take her to the zoo the next day. The circus ended a bit after 10, and we went to my girlfriend's grandparent's house for a snack, arriving around 11:15. An hour later and we were on the road home and I received another text.

"Where are you guys? I thought you'd be home by now. You missing the party!!!"

THE PARTY???? I didn't realize that when I jokingly told my housemate to invite people over that it would turn into a party. We don't live on campus anymore! We can't be throwing keggers in the suburbs!! And we had a 4 year old with us!!! I was dreading the situation when we neared our house because I hate to be the guy that tells people to turn down the music in their own house, but it was close to 2am and we needed my cousin to get some sleep!

Well when we pulled down the street I was shocked...

There were no cars in the street
There were no cars in our driveway
There was no loud music coming from inside
The only lights on in the house were in the living room

I was confused but relieved. Now I needed to know what happened to the party...

Had it really ended that early?
Did my friends drink a bunch then drive home?
Were the neighbors upset about what might have happened?
God forbid the police had to get involved...

When we walked in the front door my two housemates we asleep on the couches with a movie playing on the TV. D*** woke up and I asked what happened to the party. He told me to follow him to the garage. I hesitantly followed not sure what to expect. What I found was the following situation...

Trash was all over the garage floor
Beer bottles were all over the garage floor
There was a foul odor throughout the room

What surprised me the most about what I found was this...

The trash on the floor was cardboard boxes and packing peanuts and foam
The beer bottles were from a six-pack D*** and C*** split
The foul odor was from the canister of gasoline sitting in the corner

My two housemates had purchased a lawnmower and a grill that evening and put them together in the garage. Apparently C***'s parents were visiting the next day and he wanted to cookout for them and our lawn needed some grooming.

So it has occurred to me that the term party has evolved. A couple of years ago a party involved beers and loud music until daybreak. Now it involves putting together appliances and watching a movie on the couch because you're tired from a long day of work. I guess it's all part of growing up. It appears that the next evolved version of party will involve a clown, pin the tail on the donkey, and lots of noisy children....

I could get used to that, but for now I'll stick with snowblowers and the Die Hard series.

Stay tuned...