Spending the night at a friends’ house is a right of passage. As a parent, I can now understand that it’s also something that causes parents to worry – there are so many unknowns, from siblings to guns to alcohol – when it’s not your house.

If you have any doubts as to whether or not that’s true, just read through these 17 sleepover memories that have never left the memories of the people who experienced them.

17. That definitely qualifies.

I was 13-14 and staying the night at a friend’s house with 2 other girls, when we were woken up by a loud popping noise from her brothers room. Naturally 4 curious girls went to see what the hell he was doing at 3 in the morning.

Her mom came running up the stairs about the time we entered his room, and quickly herded us back out of his room in hysterics. It took my brain forever to register that he had shot himself in the chest. Luckily he survived, and I never had another sleepover at someone else’s house again.

Plenty of nightmares though.

16. No secrets there.

A friend of mine at school used to recount her side of entire conversations from the day in her sleep.

Like a tape recorder.

It was both weird & highly informative.

15. Some friends.

One time I was at a “friend’s” house for a sleepover and he and another “friend” held me down on the couch and tried to light my hair on fire with lighters. I managed to break free and ran upstairs and asked my friends mom to let me use the phone.

Mom came promptly to pick me up. Needless to say, I was not on speaking terms with the other two again.

14. Oh, my heart.

i slept over a friends house when i was around ten and we were playing nintendo. at some point he yelled “shit” and without a word his dad comes storming into the room, pulled him up and just started spanking him in front of me then took him out into the hallway to scold him. then he just came back as if nothing happened but with a red face and teary eyes.

it was the most awkward, uncomfortable night of my life having to continue on pretending to have a fun sleepover after that but i felt so bad for him i did my best. it was what i imagine sleeping over at Butter’s house would be like.

13. Ah, boys. It starts early.

When I was in the 6th (?) grade I was going to stay the night a friend’s house but we ended up at another kid’s down the street. This guy ended up talking about how he would hump his bed until there was a wet spot on his boxers.

He ended up doing this while we were in the room watching tv and then showed us the wet spot.

And that was how I learned how to jerk off.

12. It’s funny and awful all at once.

watched Aladdin at a b-day party, woke up later that night to friends older bro jerking off noisily in his sleeping bag with the movie paused on a scene of jasmine.

11. What were they doing out there?

Kid who had a “pee jar” in his closet. It was a gallon pickle jar, if he had to pee in the middle of the night he had to use the jar. Once his mom put him (us) in his room for the night we weren’t allowed to leave his room until she came to get us the next morning.

How did they make sure of that? The door knob was turned around backwards so they could lock us in.

10. Wait, no one went home??

Not something I saw but one of my friends in high school told a group of us girls at a sleepover that she’d been babysitting the previous weekend and the girl reported to her that she was being molested by her uncle.

My friend was so upset and scared to tell her parents (they were family friends) and hadn’t told anyone. We made her go upstairs and tell her mom, her mom called the other family, and we basically heard both her parents sobbing off and on all night.

The other parents called the cops and as far as I recall, the uncle was arrested and spent some time in prison. My friend was really scared she’d have to speak in court but didn’t have to.

9. Talk about loving yourself.

We were playing hide and seek with my friend’s little sister and I went into the unlocked bathroom while loudly saying “where could she be? Maaaybe in heeere?” (the little sister was five, we were ten) and the father was Jack hammering his d*ck while staring at himself in the bathroom mirror and had his other hand tweaking his nipple.

I left and walked home.

8. I hope they told her parents eventually.

My friend’s older brother would get mad at her for small things (went in his room, lost the tv remote, shut a door too loudly) and proceed to beat the shit out of her. Pull her hair and hold her down and punch her in the sides, literally throw her across the room.

He was almost 10 years older than us and easily had 100-150lbs on her.

He would eventually tire from the beatings, leave the room, and she would go back to playing with me like nothing happened.

I remember being so unbelievably shocked by it but eventually became desensitized because of how normal it seemed to her, and how unfazed she was by it.

7. There’s always one.

I remember we did a secondary school bonding thing in our first year where you effectively go to a summer camp for the weekend with the whole year group, about 200 11-12 year olds, to get to know everyone. Sleeping arrangements were in dormitories with bunk beds, separated by gender, about 30 to a room.

Lights go out in my dorm, no teachers, just 30 11-12 year olds that don’t know each other that well. A kid farts. Hilarious. Someone else farts, a few others. Then, I vividly remember a distinct sloppy sound followed by a panicked “oh”, a kid shat himself.

6. That will scare you off.

I was in the 4th grade when is slept over at a friends house, it was me and two other girls. It was my first time sleeping over at someone else’s house. I was always too scared to stay overnight anywhere but her and I were close and when I hung out at her house during the day we always had a great time.

Well I’m not sure what happened but we were eating popcorn and I spilled some kernels down my shirt. We all ran to the bathroom laughing and got the kernels out some ended up in the sink. When her older high school age brother found out he proceeded to beat the hell out of her. Me and the other girls ran to her room and shut the door, all we heard was her screaming. I felt so guilty i just wanted to disappear.

She finally came into the room red and covered in tears. We never talked about it again, and I didn’t have another sleepover till high school.

5. None of this is ok.

When I was in 1st grade, my mom got a second job working Friday and Saturday nights. I would stay at my best friends house. This lasted like two weeks until I told her all the weird things that happened.

My BFF was extremely skinny. She was way underweight, but her mom told everyone it was a medical condition. Her mom literally counted the grapes we ate. She had a very strict diet and pudgy me was starving. No processed sugar, no bread, no pasta. My fatass was dying.

Her dad would take photos of us. Once he called me into the office where he had my photo up in a bikini with my chubby stomach and legs. He proceeded to photoshop my body and make me very skinny. He told me how much nicer I would look if I dieted. He also asked me to sit on his lap and play computer games even tho his daughter (my BFF was not allowed in the office and she was getting bathed). I ran away and knocked on the bathroom door.

Her little brother was allowed to do whatever he wanted. We could only watch PBS, but he would have control over the living room tv and put in anything he wanted. We weren’t allowed in the room if he decided to watch tv. He could also hit and punch us with no punishment (he was like 4).

Her mom would give her bath because she couldn’t be trusted to clean herself. She also had to wear the clothes her mom picked out. It was always really tight and too small.

The second weird thing happened on the last night I ever stayed there. My mom flipped her shit and called CPS on them (she told me when I was older). My BFF disappeared to some private Christian school. When I saw her once in high school, she hated me and she was about 5’5” and maybe 99lbs. I would be surprised if she ever was in the triple digits. I really loved the girl.

4. Oh. My. Goodness.

When I was in elementary school, I got invited with my sister to a birthday party of one of her friends. Everything was going fine for most of the night, and then the catastrophe happened.

Her mom came down to the basement and was clearly very upset, but didn’t explain why. She then had each of us line up on the stairs from the basement to the ground level of the house and brought us in one by one. I wasn’t the first in line but no one was telling us what happened once it was their turn.

Finally I was up, and her mom took me into the bathroom and showed me a trash can with a poop in it. She was basically on the verge of tears, pointing to the trash can and asking me, “is this your poop!? Is this your poop!?” It wasn’t.

We never found out whose it was, or at least I wasn’t told. We have joked that someone will finally come forward on their death bed, but my sister and I have since lost contact with those girls, so we may never know.

3. That poor kid.

When I was around 13-14, a kid I invited over to my sleepover birthday party decided to strip down to his tighty-whities right before cake and ice cream. Myself, my parents, friends and relatives were mortified.

Apparently it was normal behavior at his house.

2. So many twists!

Sleepover in friend’s basement with 4 of us there. I think this was 4th grade.

Around midnight the host friend’s dad opened the door at the top of the  stairs to ask if we wanted snacks, and he comes tumbling down the stairs and hit his head pretty hard.

He didn’t move for what felt like forever and we heard from the top of the stairs some delirious yelling. My innocent self thought it was the host’s mom afraid because her husband just tripped and fell.

My other friend later explained to me that…no, the host mom was drunk off her ass and pushed the dad down the stairs.

So yeah, I guess I witnessed a wife try to kill her husband.

1. She never fell asleep first again.

When I was 12, We went on a family trip to Vegas. I woke up in the hotel to my parents having s^x in the bed next to me. I was trapped and had nowhere to go. My mom said something along the lines of “Stop we’re gonna wake up the kids”

My dad gets up walks over to our bed and rips the blankets off our faces and said ” See fast asleep”

I should have won an Oscar

I’m so thankful I never had a weird sleepover. Two points to my childhood for not being weird.

What story would you add to this list? If you’ve got a weird one, share it with us in the comments!