May 29, 2015 3 min read

Last weekend, I was outside at a swanky garden party. You knew it was swanky because the host called it a garden party and not a barbecue.

P.S. There is very little difference. Both garden parties and barbecues have people milling about the backyard, eating and drinking. OK, there was a signature cocktail that had watermelon, basil and Grey Goose vodka. Signature cocktails at barbecues are called Budweiser.

Also, I believe I was eating a stone wheat flatbread with white bean hummus, and not Funyuns or Fritos. But, essentially, all the other elements were the same. There was still a man grilling meat at a fire. There was still laughter, merriment and drunkards. At every party, there is at least one drunk. I am almost always glad it’s not me. I say almost always because occasionally it is me. It was easy to get ripped on the watermelon-infused house cocktail. That Saturday, however, I was as stone sober as my milled wheat cracker.

There were interesting people there from interesting places like London, Paris and Punxsutawney. Yes, Punxsutawney; I’m fascinated by that place. Aside from one day in February, you never hear about it. Besides, I had to ask the guests from Punxsutawney their proximity to Gobbler’s Knob, just because it’s fun to use Gobbler’s Knob in a sentence.

I was talking to some new and interesting guests. I started flailing my arms about and sputtering, “Ptui, ptui!” I wasn’t having a stroke. A bug flew in my mouth at an inopportune moment (not that there’s a good moment to have an insect fly in your mouth). Suddenly, I was the Wacky, Waving Inflatable Arm-Flailing Tube Man.

There are two ways to embarrass yourself at a party: get ridiculously drunk or act like a lunatic when a bug flies into your mouth. At least I wasn’t drunk.

I could feel the thing on the back of my throat, near my uvula. It wasn’t coming out. I started making noises. I sounded like a German with a speech impediment. I grabbed a napkin and began wiping my tongue, trying to scrape the offending insect from my palate. At one point, I realized I had to suck it up and actually suck it in. I had to swallow the bug. Eww.

By the way, the new and interesting people found another corner of the lawn to converse. I missed my chance to be equally new and interesting. Instead, I was the big, flailing, sputtering weirdo. I had two new choices. Go over and tell them I swallowed a bug or hang out with the dull and uninteresting people I came with.

OK, they’re not all dull and uninteresting, but a few times, while I was listening to my friend talk about the time his wife bought a puffy, pink toilet seat that didn’t stay up when you put it up, so you have to hold it in place with your knee if you wanted to stand and urinate, I was looking across the yard at the other group joking and laughing. I had frienvy.

Side note: I’m trying this thing where I create a word (or portmanteau) and see if it finds its way into modern vernacular. It worked when Sarah Jessica Parker did it on “Sex and the City.”

Here’s a helpful summertime hint: If you want to talk to cool and interesting people outside, keep your mouth shut and just listen for a while. You know, so the bugs don’t get in.