“As you all know, my husband, Bob, was a great archaeologist.” And then she read from his résumé. Literally. All of his awards, publications, education, and all the while, not a word about Bob as the man, the husband, the father. “And I would like to raise a glass to Bob—Archaeologist Extraordinaire.” Those who’d nodded off quickly livened up, raised their plastic cups, and clinked the air. Just before chatting resumed, Mark piped up.

“And, hi. I’m Mark. I know most of you, and for those of you who I’m meeting for the first time, I am Bob Friedman’s son. And I just wanted to add that, while my dad was indeed a brilliant archaeologist, and therefore didn’t have a ton of time for me, what time he did have, he was nice enough.” Mark suddenly looked embarrassed and quickly sat back down.

And I thought my family was dysfunctional.

It was shortly after four and most of the guests had left. “Sheila, I think this was acceptable,” the judge said, breezing by as I cleared off the last of the empty cups and plates. This was as close to a compliment as she could manage.

“Thanks, Judge,” I said without thinking.

“What, why are you thanking me?” she asked, suddenly angry. Had I not learned anything? Why hadn’t I stuck to “Yes, Judge”?—never deviate from that script. Before I could apologize for having said thank you, I caught a cane peering out of the bathroom. Oh no. It was Esther. I thought she’d left hours ago. She emerged. And became enraged upon seeing me.

“You! YOU! YOU!” she screamed, making a beeline. “There was wheat in that! There was wheat in thaaaaaat!” Judge Friedman came to Esther’s offense.

“What? Sheera, all I asked of you was to just look after my dear sister-in-law—and you couldn’t even do that? Can’t you do anything?” I wasn’t about to let a bit of bread take me down.

“Matthew!” I called to the other side of the room. He approached, gingerly. “As it turns out, there was wheat in that sandwich you gave to Esther here,” I said, gently patting Esther on the back. Esther clearly no longer wanted to get in Matthew’s pants. Esther whispered something to the judge, who nodded.

“Matthew, seems that Esther has had an accident—thanks to your incompetence with answering simple questions about sandwiches.” The judge pointed to the bathroom. “Go clean it up.”

Matthew looked like he’d been shot in the ass with a stun gun. His eyes got huge. He started stuttering. Who could blame him? For a guy who got grossed out by shirt stains, you can imagine the havoc being wreaked by this project. He stood, still staring, horror registering.

“GO!” the judge instructed, pushing him toward the bathroom.