A sleep over with my volleyball team isn’t like most sleepovers at all. We’re not the type of girls who go to someone’s house, eat pizza, watch a movie, and then go to sleep. No, we’re not like that at all. We made pasta and chicken, painted sweatpants, and squeezed all eleven of us into an over sized chair. This is a pretty hard thing to do, being that we’re all over 5’8 (well except for little Sammy). Squished in that chair, we even prank called a grandma.

The sleepover started out like any other team gathering outside of volleyball, there was lots of laughing, screaming, and taking pictures. Once all the beginning excitement died down we decided it was time to paint our sweat pants. With the sweat pants painted and hanging from Dakota’s basement ceiling, we all ran up stairs to prepare dinner. Our dinner wasn’t a normal sleepover dinner of cheap pizza and soda. Because all of us are elite athletes and are on healthy diets we decided to travel down the healthy road of dining and have chicken, pasta, salad, and punch to drink.

After a great dinner we all ran back down stairs to find something else to do for the rest of the night. We were all wandering around Dakota’s huge basement, which was filled with old fashioned and new arcade games, a billiards and air hockey table, and a lemonade vending machine. That’s when we saw it. An over sized cream colored puffy chair. Nina, Brittany, Brooke, Sam, and I were the first to the chair, claiming the best seats. Somehow, everyone else managed to find a way to squeeze in too. When we were all comfortable (well as comfortable as all eleven of us could be) we burst out into uncontrollable laughter. None of us really knew why we were laughing but we just couldn’t stop. Once the laughter calmed down a little, somehow Dakota managed to flip off the back of the chair. Landing on her air hockey table she flipped herself off that too, she was like a monkey swinging from a tree. When she got up and we all made sure she was okay, we all went into another laughing fit.

When we started to run out of random things to laugh and talk about, it was already eleven pm. That’s when we got the idea. Brooke decided she wanted to prank call her ex-boyfriend, so she picked up her phone and called him. When it was ringing Nina came up with a great idea

“Hey, guys, I can kinda talk in a really good man voice.”

“Okay,” Brooke laughed as she threw Nina the phone.

As Nina had promised, her man voice was amazing and flawless. We just had to call more people and have her talk to them in her creepy and hilarious voice! Our next victims of our hilarious and harmless prank calls were just a bunch of random people and friends from our schools. When we started to run out of friends to call we looked for someone else. That’s when Brooke had one of her wild ideas!

“Guys, we should like totally call my grandma!” Brooke enthused.

“Umm, okay,” we all mumbled in a slightly worried tone.

“It’ll we great!” Brooke screeched, while bouncing up and down, making the whole chair shake.

“But won’t your grandma get worried and freak out?” I questioned

“Nah,” Brooke laughed. “My grandmas kinda really mean!”

“Well okay then.” We all replied. “Let’s call her.”

Brooke dialed her grandma’s number and tossed the phone to Nina. As the phone was ringing we all couldn’t stop laughing!

“Wait! Wait! Brooke what is her name?” Nina yelped over the laughter.

“Debbie!” Brooke cackled back

The phone rang a few more times and then went to voice mail, my heart sank.

“Well call it again!” Sam yelled.

Nina pressed redial and we all sat leaning forward, straining our ears to hear the wonderful word “Hello”. I lost more and more hope of her actually answering with every ring. Then on one of the final rings, there it was.

“Hello?” Debbie answered.

“Ah!” Many of us let out a muffled scream into the chair pillow.

“Oh, yes, um, hello. Debbie? Debbie?” Nina spoke into the phone in the deep man voice.

“Yes, Hello,” She answered.

“Yes, hello Debbie, this is Mr. Carson, is this Debbie?” Nina questioned.

“Yes this is her,” She replied in a raspy voice.

“Okay, hello Debbie!” Nina proclaimed in her perfect voice. “This is Mr. Carson, I’m selling, uh, cookies, yes, and I’m selling Girl Scout cookies.”

“I’ m sorry, I am getting really bad reception,” Debbie stuttered. “Can I please call you back?”

“Oh, of course Debbie, I will call you back!” Nina commanded.

With that the line went dead and we all burst into uncontrollable laughter.

“Well we better call her back!” Brittany enthused.

“Wait, I think we might have some Girl Scout cookies up stairs we can eat,” Dakota gushed. She hopped off the chair and sprinted upstairs to look for the tasty treat. Two minutes later she came running back down. “Sorry, there weren’t any cookies, but I did find these,” She chirped, showing us a huge container filled with homemade chocolate covered pretzels with rainbow sprinkles.

“Yum!” we all wailed as we tried to grab some to eat.

“Okay time to call Debbie!” Dakota bellowed with her mouth overflowing with the sticky chocolaty snack.

Nina quickly pressed redial and we all waited to hear Debbie’s raspy voice answer the phone.

“Uh hello,” Debbie’s voice came from the phone.

“Eee!” We all squealed as we covered our mouths to keep from laughing.

“Yes, hello Debbie, this is Mr. Carson. I really need your order of cookies soon, really soon, please Debbie,” Nina spoke deeply into the phone.

“I’m sorry but I don’t want any cookies at this time,” she uttered into the phone, clearly confused.

“Please Debbie, we’re raising money for… um,” Nina paused for just a second to think of something to say.

Then, just at that moment, Dakota’s mom yelled down to us in the basement. “Girls, please be quiet! Dakota, your sisters are trying to get to sleep!”

Without another word, Nina hung up the phone and we all burst into laughter. Then suddenly at the same time we all stopped, sitting there looking at each other I think we all felt the same thing, the sense of having another family. All eleven of us make up a family and we each have a role in it. That night just brought our family closer. From that night I learned how on a sports team it’s very important that a team is close and like a family. Because if a team is not close they will never be able to come together and perform when times are tough.