When my niece moved in with us, it required some shifting of space, a little reordering in the household. The Girls chose to share one extra-large bedroom that my husband was currently using to escape the insanity that is our life. This led to a glorious four-month reincarnation from austere mancave to teenage girl xanadu with chartreuse walls, two full-size loft beds lit up underneath with rope lighting and a built-in desk (courtesy of my talented husband), two tall dressers with overlay that serves as a vanity, a chalkboard wall, and a closet entirely devoted to accessories. Seriously, it’s sick.

Since the larger room is further down the hallway (and therefore less easy to supervise), we turned the smaller bedroom into a hangout room for movie watching and, well, hanging out. The first weekend after the hangout room was finished, four boys showed up on Friday to watch a movie. Saturday night, three more friends showed up…all boys. That night Nanny asked, “Where are The Girls? I haven’t seen them much this weekend.”

Now, Nanny tends to ask a lot of questions, like “Who put these two glasses on the sink” and “Who was walking around upstairs at 3 a.m.” and “Who ate the ground beef three days ago.” These questions tend to lead to long conversations about dishes and whatnot; I could tell this would be one of those conversations.

“They’re upstairs in the hangout room, watching TV with some friends,” I told her.

“Huh. Is that Amish boy up there?” (Nanny is fascinated with Nate, who is 18 and has a full beard.)

“No, he was here last night.”

“What about Frankie?” (Frankie and Nanny are friends on Facebook.)

“Yes, he’s here.” And, anticipating the next question, “No, he wasn’t here last night, there were other friends last night.”

“How many?” she asked.

“How many what?”

“How many boys were here last night?

I did a quick mental count. “Um, four I think. And there are three here tonight.”

“Hmmph. How is it that two girls generate so many boys?”

I have asked myself that a few times. On their own, each girl would probably hang out with a boy or two on the weekend, but the two of them together seem to have increased the number of boys around in any given weekend exponentially. However, since Nature does not like imbalance, she has cast some sort of spell over our house. Sooner or later, just about every boy that comes over ends up in drag. Nate has had his beard dyed green and was forced out into public to pursue an elusive Icee. Lee and Jordan ended up as a witch and Pippi Longstocking. Sam, poor Sam, ended up with multiple tiny pigtails all over his head, and a full face of makeup. Frankie looked quite good in a tight purple Aeropostale t-shirt and has tried on all their wigs. Everyone wears the hats. If we cannot have as many girls as there are boys, we shall have drag queens instead.