Famous People archives: Saturday sleepover party at Jen's haunted house
famous people's famous weekend trip to Warwick, New York
snow day? perfect day to revisit a famous people classic. this installment was originally published on Double Bounce in October 2017. we’ll be sending out the archives for free whenever we feel like it.
Kaitlyn: How about a horror movie in which five winsome and charming members of the lamestream blogosphere go on a giggle-filled retreat to a haunted home in upstate New York? On the first day of their trip they get drunk on the ground at a winery / public park and on the second they investigate the sewers of a small town hosting both an apple festival and a complicated marketing stunt for the 2017 film adaptation of It. I would certainly love to see this feature. And not just because someone would have to pay Famous People one million big ones for their life rights prior to making it!
The other reason would be that perhaps in the film version of Saturday Sleepover Party at Jen’s Haunted House I would have better hair, and the plot point where I made a big deal about eating a pickle for the first time would be excised to streamline the narrative.
Lizzie: “Jen” was our absent Airbnb host, and we had a lot of fun criticizing her home that she had graciously offered to us for a lump sum of $282.57 per night. “Jen, how about you get rid of the orange walls?,” we’d say. “Jen, how about you get rid of the bright green walls?” “Jen, how about a nice eggshell?” We cracked ourselves up! What a joy it is to spend the night in a home that has nothing to do with you.
Jen, without ever making an appearance, proved herself to be a much better person than all of us. She left us candy corn and a sleeve of Oreos to eat, which we consumed immediately upon arrival because no one ate any breakfast except for me, and I left my bagel in the trunk.
After the Oreos and a meal at the town’s only pizza place, we went to a massive winery and distillery where the entire city of Warwick, NY goes on Saturdays to air out their North Face fleeces. We got drunk. “When in Warwick,” as they say. The entire time we wondered what Jen was doing.
Kaitlyn: In any gal pal movie there is one friend for whom things keep going wrong. It’s for comedy. Also you can’t show five successful women having a perfect good time and getting along and succeeding in all their schemes because it’s too edgy and wouldn’t turn a much of a profit for Sony Pictures. Saturday Sleepover Party at Jen’s Haunted House had not one but two of these characters: Kaitlyn and Lizzie, the yin and yang of discomfort. Exceptional film.
Here’s a summary: Lizzie walked her cute little mug into a sign on day one and on day two was patted on and around her crotch for 14 minutes by a diner hostess who felt deeply sorry about invading her space with a full glass of ice water but was super comfortable with other types of unbidden intimacy. As for me, I spent 14 minutes of our return car trip explaining in great detail why I was thrilled to be going on a first date with a boy named Jack, which turned into a lengthy comedy bit in which Claire pretended that the Jack I was going on a date with was actually Patrick Dempsey aka Jack Qwant from Bridget Jones’ Baby, who is a billionaire and invented a website that qwantifies your romantic compatibility with any person based on a trove of data I am assuming he must have acquired from Peter Thiel. And just as 3 out of 5 Toyota Avalon passengers were saying “we have a good feeling about Jack Qwant,” that freako texted me to say that he had literally gotten a girlfriend in the two days since we had made our plan to eat in front of each other. I thought it was a prank!
Lizzie: Jack Qwant and Jack “Qwant” took Jen’s place as “possible fictional person whose name we will yell out loud and at random for laughs.”
Besides emotional and bodily injury, the theme of the weekend was the timeless Bridget Jones film series starring Renee Zellweger, of which we watched the first and third installment. Its comedic stylings include “big underwear,” “pervy uncle,” “biological clocks,” and “Patrick Dempsey and Colin Firth are not gay.” Unfortunately for Colin Firth, he’s aging at 7 times the rate of an average man, while Patrick Dempsey traded Shonda Rhimes 7 years of his life for the gift of eternal youth.
Kaitlyn: Yes, the recurring jokes of the weekend were “Jack Qwant,” some Pennywise stuff pertaining to the single red balloons being handed out by a Lutheran church group, and that we had lots of renovation ideas for our Airbnb host Jen. One of the ideas was to pull up the linoleum in the kitchen, another was to throw out some or all of the Paula Deen mugs, and a third was to own a couch.
PARTY REVIEW METRICS:
Did anyone bring a dog?
Kaitlyn: No, but Lizzie and Claire met 45 greyhounds at the “Friends of Greyhounds of New Jersey” booth. Also Loren’s dog Jax wasn’t involved in the trip but we saw him briefly and made fun of him for being named after a Vanderpump Rules cast member.
Lizzie: It’s true! Her dog’s full name is Jax (Formerly Known As Jason) Taylor.
Did we hear any good secrets?
Kaitlyn: One of my most deeply-held beliefs is that the trope of a “mean girls” “clique” was invented by the MSM to keep women from banding together in the face of evil (male-dominated workplaces and educational environments). However we did gossip a lot, mostly not in a nice way. Also I made the brave choice to divulge that I find a controversial male journalist extremely attractive and got yelled at by the entire Toyota Avalon.
Lizzie: Kaitlyn didn’t say he was “extremely” attractive in the car, which I think is a sign her feelings are too embarrassing to discuss truthfully anywhere but a semi-anonymous party newsletter.
Did anyone get engaged?
Kaitlyn: Jack Q. invited me to his wedding. No hard feelings here.
Did anyone get famous?
Kaitlyn: No, but we did meet a local celebrity! It was a man who wears a partial tuxedo and smokes cigars by the front door of his diner and will rush in to sweep up ice cubes with a broom if you happen to have 500 of them in your lap all of a sudden and then you stand up. We heard about him earlier in the weekend from a woman at the winery who told Ashley “oh, there’s also the restaurant that some new Jewish people opened.” Another recurring joke of the weekend was that this might have been an example of racism.
Lizzie: I think she referred to it as “the Jewish restaurant,” which also might be an example of anthropomorphizing restaurants.
PARTY SCORE:
Kaitlyn: 5 out of 5 apples, the same as I gave Jen on Airbnb.
Lizzie: 5 out of 5 new couches for Jen.