A couple weeks ago my friend Seth had an impromptu cookout (we can’t call it a barbeque, because as a native Texan, Ingrid protests to calling grilling barbequing). Seth, Jen, Georgia and I were sitting on Seth’s back deck and somehow the conversation turned to my blog. (Okay, it didn’t just turn to my blog, I asked Seth point-blank “hey, have you read my blog recently?”). He replied that he had, but he was a little miffed that hadn’t rated so much as a mention (I’d like to protest that fact, he did get a shout out in the Broad Street Run wrap up post) while Una’s cat had gotten several paragraphs at one point. I replied that I would make it a point to “tell a Seth story” sometime in the near future. So Seth, this one’s for you!

This is actually a story that Seth reminded me of that night on his deck, and remembering it made me laugh almost as much as that night when it happened. It was Memorial Day weekend last year, and we were cooking out on his deck that night too. My dad was in town from Portland and a bunch of us were hanging out, eating and having a mellow time. There is a sliding glass door as well as a sliding screen between the deck and the living room and they had both been standing open all night. We’d all been moving back and forth between the two spaces, not thinking a thing about it. And then someone closed the screen. Seth is an excellent host and was hurrying back and forth between the kitchen and the grill, making sure that everyone was furnished with an unending supply of burgers, hot dogs and chicken. He was in the kitchen when the screen was closed, and in the twilight it was admittedly difficult to see the screen. Walking brisked, he ran right up into the screen and then bounced backwards, the force of the screen sending him back into the room. He went up against the screen and the screen won. The look of shock on his face was pure, priceless and totally hilarious. I cracked up, and continued laughing in hysterical bursts, in a world unto myself for the next ten minutes. None of my Philly friends had ever seen this side of me, but my Dad nodded knowingly. He had witnessed my capacity for totally engrossing and contagious laughter before and knew that the only thing you can do is ride it out. (Friends from college who read this will remember my tendency to crack myself and everyone around me up during dinner, on a regular basis).

It was pretty damn funny.