The Night Justin Timberlake Crashed Our Playdate

by Cathy & Patti


Before our babies are even born, we wonder about their futures: Will they be happy, will they be successful, will they get married, will they have friends? Indeed, worrying about their social lives is a surprisingly heavy concern. Of course we want our kids to be liked, to have friends - so the moment they are capable of acknowledging there is another human being in the room, we start hooking them up on play dates.

At first those play dates are accompanied by us, which can sometimes be torturous when your kid's new friend has a mother with the personality of a plant. But as they grow older and more self-sufficient, the playdates become of the "dump and run" variety, and we take advantage of that sudden glorious free-time while our kids develop friendships. Win-win!

But once in a while, you hit the social jackpot: Not only is your kid making a new friend, you also happen to really like that friend's mom. Suddenly, these play dates become a total 2-for-1! The kids play with the kids! The moms play with the .... wait. That sounds a bit porny and Moms Gone Wild.

But you know what? Moms sometimes DO go wild.

Patti:
When S was about seven years old, her friendship with Bella, Cathy's daughter and S's bestie, was in full bloom. We had recently started a fun Friday night play date tradition, which entailed pizza and the girls playing "school" and "fashion show", and other various girly games, while Cathy and I would catch up on our respective weeks and swig wine. Yes, we drink wine. IN FRONT OF OUR CHILDREN, CALL THE POLICE. These Friday night play dates (FNPD) usually began around 6 pm, and would end around 10 pm. But as the Friday nights came and went, our FNPDs began to go later and later. We figured, "Eh. She's Greek. She's Latin. It's what we do." And so we did.

One night, Cathy and I got into a discussion about music. Cathy is a very B96 kind of girl. Me? Give me a guitar and I'll sing you some songs I wrote. So we got into a bit of a debate about Justin Timberlake, who, at the time, I considered to be strictly B96 material. As the girls ran screaming up and down the long hallway in Cathy's condo, and circled the couch chasing each other in poofy, sparkly princess things, we discussed the pros and cons of Justin Timberlake.
"I just think he is sexy..." Cathy sighed.
"Eeeew, no. He is... just not. Plus: I hate his music."
"You HATE his MUSIC?" Cathy looked at me, horrified, reconsidering our friendship. "You can't hate his music..."
Seeing my unmoving face, Cathy popped up from the couch. "Okay, look, I'm gonna show you something of his that there is no way you can not like!" She turned on the television as the girls, spent from running around, flung themselves onto Cathy's futon. She searched through her DVR'd shows, and came upon a frozen-on-the-screen Justin Timberlake, wearing a fedora and all decked out in white. "Look. At. THIS." She pressed play, and Justin began to gyrate ever-so-slightly. He seemed to look right at me and sang, "Hey girl, is he everything you wanted in a man? You know I gave you my world. You had me in the palm of your hand..."

Although turned off by the "palm of your hand" lyric - even Cathy knows my aversion to all things cliche -  I found myself strangely turned ON by the haunting melody and Justin's sure gaze. I moved closer to the edge of the couch and, against my very will, suddenly found myself standing up, dancing along to Justin's words, "Don't want to talk about it. Don't want to think about it. I'm just so sick about it." What was WRONG with me? Did everything I ever held to be true suddenly blow up?

As soon as the song ended, I felt something inside of me had shifted. But Cathy didn't stop her immersion-to-conversion therapy there, no. She pulled out her iPod and some headphones, stuck one bud into her ear, and the other into mine, and suddenly Justin Timberlake's "Sexy Back" was caressing my ear. I looked at Cathy and she smiled slyly at me; she knew her plan was working. The next thing we knew, we were bumping hips and gyrating, our arms in the air, singing out loud as Justin Timberlake seduced each one of us, together and separately, song by song.

That is, until I saw it. Or, should I say, them. We had totally forgotten about our kids. Our exhausted, up-since 7am-and-gone-to-school kids. There they were, both face-planted into the futon, completely knocked out. I looked at the clock. It was 1 o'clock in the morning! Who has play dates that last until 1 o'clock in the morning?!?

Thanks to Justin, we did.

Cathy:
Oooh, those FNPDs. Like Patti mentioned, it was the best of both worlds; girls occupied and playing, moms having a girls night out (GNO) in the comfort of their own home. We often cranked up the iTunes on my Mac, conveniently located in the kitchen, where all the creature comforts of a GNO would be - food and wine.

And when ABBA's Mamma Mia soundtrack came on - look out! The girls would run in squealing and whirling while Patti and I spun them and swung them, all of us singing at the top of our lungs (much to the chagrin of my neighbors) while Patti videotaped the whole lively fiasco on her phone.  So when the party moved into the living room and J.T. was singing and swaying right to us through the television (I had his Madison Square Gardens concert recorded live on cable! Hours and hours of entertainment!), the party was taken to a whole other level. Well, for us big girls, at least.

Our daughters, (Ari was three at the time) would be running in and out of the living room, dodging and darting between us as Patti and I busted the clubbiest dance moves we could muster from our back-in-the-day nights. Our legs were sore for days afterward.

In the midst of all this hoopla but before the kids tumbled over all around us in a heap of exhaustion, my husband came home. His look - a combination of intrigue, laughter, shock and bewilderment - said it all. After the obligatory greetings and questions were exchanged, before he knew it, he got over the fact that the kids weren't in bed and since he couldn't beat us, he decided to join us. He grabbed a glass of wine and crashed our J.T. play date.

Perhaps the most memorable scenario of the night - as if what was ensuing was not memorable enough - was when Ari decided she wanted some of what us big people were drinking. So without any warning and quick as lightning, she stuck her little finger in Joe's glass and darted it back into her mouth. I lunged towards Joe. "Don't let her have any of that! She's on antibiotics!" Really?

That night - the night J.T. gave a private, command performance just for us Dancing Queens in my living room - was better than any concert or club we could have gone to. It was a spontaneous, memorable time that we got to share with our children and still talk and laugh about.
...........

Now, when we hear one of his songs play on the radio, we're immediately transported back to the night that Justin Timberlake crashed our daughters' play date. And then we smile and turn up the radio.