Maya Rudolph's Sleepover SNL Sketch Is Making Parents Laugh & Then Burst Into Tears

Maya Rudolph hosting Saturday Night Live is genius, but Maya Rudolph hosting Saturday Night Live on Mother’s Day weekend? It’s perfection. The SNL alum and mom of four started off with a bang with her opening monologue, which included a campy, techno confection of her — our collective Mother — performing a catchy, pop-tastic song titled “Mother.” And the hits just kept coming with a skit about Teacher Appreciation Week and, my favorite of the night, the sleepover sketch.

Titled “Can You Pick Me Up,” the sketch opens on Maya as a mom asleep in her bed. She gets a call from her daughter at a slumber party, asking her to pick her up. But, like we all remember doing as homesick kids who didn’t want to play anymore Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board with our friends, the daughter wants her mom to “make something up” so that her friends don’t think she’s bailing on the slumber party.

What follows is pretty much the ultimate mom montage.

The humor, of course, is in the many ridiculous excuses Maya’s character makes up for her daughter, including everything from “we have a 2 a.m. funeral” to “her dad’s gay” and “CICADAS!!” which just had her unleashing a handful of them into the other parents’ home.

But deep down, it’s an incredibly sweet sketch about moms (and dad, played by Kenan Thompson, who straight up tells the other mom “your daughter’s mean and your house smells funny” as his excuse for picking up his kid) and the lengths they will go to for us. Because you know darn well how this game works in real life. When it’s time for another sleepover, Mom begs the kid to really think about it. Remember how I had to get you like four times in a row? Remember how you don’t like sleepovers? Remember how I had to throw a handful of cicadas as a diversion to get you out of there?

And the kid says things like “this time will be different” and “don’t worry, I won’t call” and Mom sighs and thinks, “OK. I guess I have to let her try.”

And then the 1 a.m. call comes anyway.

And, of course, she shows up. Armed with an excuse.

Everyone seemed to have some feels about the sketch. Being Mother’s Day weekend, it did feel like a nice appreciative nod to the moms who will always, always pick up their kid’s phone calls and will always, always show up. Even if it’s difficult and even if they’re the ones who have to look like weirdo, bitchy, helicopter parents so that their kid’s not embarrassed.

“Made me remember when my mom had to pick me up because of homesickness — she always did and never made me feel bad about it,” one person commented on YouTube, while another added, “As someone who has been an introvert with a limited social battery all of my life and as someone who had a very understanding mom who would absolutely bail me out like this if I needed it, I loved this sketch down to the bottom of my heart.”

“Omg this is too sweet. It makes me wanna cry happy tears,” one more said.

Now I will forever be thinking up excuses to keep in my phone of why my child has to leave a sleepover if she ever calls me. I think my first reason will be “because she has to see Maya Rudolph host Saturday Night Live.”