“Come look at these with me! Yeah, bring your cereal over. It’s okay. It’ll take a second to load.”

“Okay. Here’s Michelle in her pirate costume. It’s Playboy. She got it at a discount– what? Sixty bucks, I think.– Yeah, but they’re normally like two hundred or something. She didn’t think I got any pictures of her, either.– I know! That’s what I said!”

“Ben, looking kind of like a cross between my dad and Moses from Prince of Egypt. Heh…– No, he was like that the whole party. Very calm. Not freaking out at all.”

“The tavern, which I got to decorate. That was my whole job, and I rocked it, I don’t mind saying. Jessie helped me with the final touches.”

“This is the front of the cigar shop that they made under the deck.– Oh, you didn’t see it? I guess it is new. The chairs look good, don’t they? It came out really well.”

“I decorated this bottle. It was pretty cool.”

“This was supposed to be, like, a photo op, but only three or four people used it.”

“This is the list of pirate names. You were supposed to pick at least one when you came to the party– like, you could be Bloodthirsty Becca or Cutthroat Chris. Or whatever. So I just put three names together. I tried to make the most ridiculous, worst name I could.– Hahahaha, okay, are you ready for this? Put your cereal down. Swallow. Okay… Bootstrap “Cannonheart” Loggerhead.– HAHAHAHAHA. I know. My dad really hated it. He wanted me to be Lacey or Slippers.”

“This is me.– I had to take a lot of them, Jason! It’s hard to take a picture of yourself in a mirror. You try it.”

“The tavern, all lit up.”

“Group shot. My nose looks huge, and Michelle is making a weird face. But Ben and my parents look great.– Aw. Thanks. You’re so sweet. Come here.”

“Ben and Jessie!– Two months? She sort of has Audrey body. She didn’t look pregnant at all. I just– aw. I can’t believe I’m finally going to be an aunt. It still seems totally surreal.”

“The pirates arriving!– They’re professional pirates. Like, they do shows and stuff… I didn’t get a lot of good pictures here for awhile… Um– no. I was holding the camera up high.– Well, I’m just short.– Ugh, that’s just his arm. Wait a second until I find something better.”

“Michelle dancing. Hahaha.”

“My dad and Jessie laughing. She was a real trooper that night. I know she was feeling queasy most of the time.”

“Everyone at the knife throwing.– Yeah. Real knives. Real throwing.– Zero, though I thought at least one by the end of the night; especially when people started drinking.”

“This pirate came in the tavern later and made some suggestive comments that he wanted Michelle’s top to fall off, and I was like, OMG, she’s only 13, you pervert! Then I remembered she’s 23. Heh. She’s always like mushroom-bowl-haircut Baby Shelly to me. Someone asked if we were twins, and then when we said no, she asked if I was the younger one.– No, I do not.– Really? How old do they think I am?– Ha. All your coworkers must think you scope out the middle school playgrounds.”

“Pirate, my dad, and Kevin.”

“My mom, listening to the pirate who wants Michelle’s body.”

“– Yeah, Stephanie was totally there! I know. She’s almost-engaged.– No, you can be almost-engaged. I promise.”

“My mom seeing Becky Jo dressed up for the first time.– She got the dreads at our house. They have a pirate supply room.”

“Pirates milling around.”

“Hahaha, poor Jessie looks so scared in this picture!”

“This was our second take.”

“Michelle looking TEMPTING AND UNDERAGE.”

“Yeah, Becky TOTALLY did the photo op. Heh. This is a cute one.”

“– I put them on upstairs. You have to wear tights or something. I was getting eaten alive by bugs.”

“The professional pirates.– I know, I think his costume is the best, too.”

“The festivities are starting. Everyone is listening to my dad’s speech.”

“Now here’s everyone applauding for my dad, who takes a bow.”

“I know. I love this picture of him. It’s one of the best of him in costume.”

“The pirate group explained pistols used during the time, and let my parents fire them. The group was certified by, like, the park authority or something to use firearms. My dad’s went off right away.”

“My mom’s didn’t.”

“Not yet.”

“There we go!”

“My dad was really excited about her success.”

“Here’s Becky Jo rat-pucking. You have to flick the rat across the yard– okay, you remember it.– She was pretty good, I think. She didn’t win, but she did pretty good.”

“Spectators to the pucking. This looks very genteel, doesn’t it?”

“That guy won. The one in the black.”

“That’s Audrey, watching my dad throw knives. She almost got in an accident on the drive up. She was really shaken, but mostly because the car could’ve been damaged. Heh. You know Audrey.”

“Ben and Auds in the tavern.– It says Admiral Xuan. I don’t know about Ben’s.”

“Parrot on a stick. It was actually chicken.”

“Jessie and Ben. Totally happy. I CAN NOT BELIEVE HE’S GOING TO BE A DAD.– No, I mean, we talked about it all night. It was the only thing we could talk about, Michelle and Becky and Auds and I. It was like a baby bomb that got dropped.”

“This is CONSUMMATE Ben, right here.”

“All of us on the dock. This isn’t a good picture of everyone, but there wasn’t a single good shot of EVERYONE. So I picked the best one of me. Heh.”

“The party, going on.”

“My momsy.”

“These are Audrey’s legs. I just took a picture of them because they look good.”

“Now they’re playing this coconut race, where you have to carry coconuts across some ropes without using your hands. This is how one couple carried them.”

“The race going on…”

“This couple tore through the rope that Audrey was holding and it made her fall back. This is her mid-fall. She’s still holding her drink high so it didn’t spill.”

“Here’s the rope swing course. We had to swing from one bench to another, and then, if you made it through the first heat, they moved the benches further apart. I made it, but then the rope swung back and pulled me back off. And I made this awful noise like a chihuahua, like AY-YI-YI-YI! when I fell off. It was totally embarrassing. Ben won this one. He swung like 28 feet or something.”

“Bonfire!”

“Here’s one of the pirates telling about pirate history. It was kind of depressing.”

“– But everyone listened. Intently. Heh.– Yeah, I know. She’s so adorable.”

“Michelle wanted us to take more pictures of her in her costume when people started leaving. It started pretty normal.”

“… Then it turned into, um–”

“And here she is on the floor.”

“Then I told Audrey to join her. Hahaha.”

“Here they are being tigers.”

“And here’s Becky Jo and I. That’s my Top Model face. Audrey loved it.”

“Afterward, I got really sick. I just felt super queasy. I wanted to get something to eat anyway, so I offered to take Becky out to a birthday dessert.– Monday or Tuesday? Soon.– Yeah, this is in the back of the Malibu I rented. The BU. The hottest ride ever.– Why wouldn’t we wear the pirate stuff? It’s funny.”

“Michelle and Auds across from us at Chili’s.– Yeah, a LOT of looks.”

“Okay, afterward– like at midnight– we were driving back to my parent’s house to get Aud’s car, and then she suggested we go swimming in her pool. And we were like– yeah! Why not! Because we all had no boys or kids or pets for the first time in forever. So here is outside of Audrey’s pool, in the driveway. That sign says AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. We were like, what kind of backyard pool needs that kind of sign?”

“Hahahaha– here we are surprising Nelly! She was on her laptop when we came in. She was totally up for a swim.– Her parents work weird hours. Her mom had just gotten off a shift, so they didn’t mind us stopping by.”

“We all wore booty shorts and bikinis underneath. She and Nelly had like 12 suits between them. When we got dressed in the spare room, I saw the pool out the window, and I was like WHAT THE MAGNIFICENT BEAUTY.”

“I can’t even tell you how amazing this pool was, Jason. It had a light show and a disco ball and a stone-rock hot tub and a lady pouring water out of a shell. It was AWESOME. Michelle and I kept floating around, going, ‘I can’t believe this is real. I can’t believe this is happening.’ Michelle said, ‘I feel like I’m in MTV Cribs. And the homeowner is going to come home any minute.’ Becky Jo pushed me in the pool, too! We were like, ‘Is it cold?’ and she said, ‘I don’t know, why don’t you FIND OUT!’ and pushed me and Michelle in. And we were so short we had to dog-paddle to go back to the top. It was like nine feet deep. I am not good at dog-paddling. I don’t know if you’re ever seen me, but I look spastic.”

“Anyway, then Michelle was like, ‘This is like the beginning of a horror movie, where we’re all splashing around and then the killer comes out of the woods.’ And you know Audrey’s house. It is SURROUNDED by woods. Then the light in the pool went out, and Michelle said, ‘This isn’t funny, guys. This is– ha ha. Okay. This is– SOMEONE TURN THE LIGHTS BACK ON!’ I grabbed her leg under the black water and she screamed.”

“Yeah, that’s the hot tub. It was ridiculous. It was so warm, and we tried to make embarrassing questions for each other, but we’re too old to be embarrassed by much. Then Audrey floated through the middle of the pool, and she did this eerie-high voice, It’s better here, and we all tried to do the same thing but failed. I don’t know how she floated like that. It was like someone had her on rollers. Nothing on her body moved. Alright– then we got out of the pool. Becky called Dave when she was changing back into her costume, and he was like, ‘Where are you?’ and she said, ‘In a room by myself.’ and Dave asked, ‘Why are you by yourself?’ and she said, ‘Well, I needed to get my clothes back on.’ This was at, like, 1:30 AM. So we were kind of in trouble. We drove back to her house, and I went to sleep… and– yeah. Drove back. I was worried about returning the rental car, because I’d never done it before.– No, you’re right. It wasn’t that bad. Luckily someone was parking their car and unloading luggage as I pulled up, so I just followed their lead.– Mmm. I know. It’s nice to be back. I missed you, buddy.”

“Yep, that’s a picture of the clean living room you left me. Heh. Thank you, by the way.– No, I think that’s it. Oh, and I’m still late, sooo…– Three weeks, almost. So– we’ll see.”