To be filed under people I love

This afternoon, for one night only, one of my bestbestbest friends - one of two people I keep up with from Carolina days - arrives with her daughter. The daughter who has been a staunch Democrat from birth.

My parents loved Ann from the minute they met her, and my father and Ann made each other laugh so hard. She always called my mom Betty, and she always called my dad Mr. Gloria.

I mean, not really Mr. Gloria. You know.

She's from the mountains of North Carolina, and you can hear it in her accent, which has not diminished over the years. She and her husband taught English in Prague after college, and I have always wanted to meet one of those Czechs speaking English with a strong NC accent.

One weekend in college she and I drove up to DC and were staying with my parents, who were having a dinner party that night. Two of the guests were old family friends, who tend toward the very proper end of the spectrum.

Sometimes or often my dad and I would kind of horrify them with our conversation. (Anal talk! Bad language!)

So at this dinner Ann and my dad were sitting across the table from each other, swapping stories. Ann had spent two summers in England working at a pub. My dad had been a busboy and a short-order cook in college.

And you know how they've done studies on groups and something like every eight minutes (or whatever the time frame is) there's a lull in conversation in the entire room?

It was during one of those lulls that Ann burst forth with, "Mr. Gloria! Did I ever tell you about the time I was waitressing and my underwear fell off?"

Love.