better than nothing.

It was more of a gathering.

The people I knew were ones I knew from way back, or at least as far back as high school which is as far back as I'm willing to go. The people I had seen around were science majors who shared a building with my major. And the people I had never seen before, well, they just stayed on the patio and smoked all night long.

I spent the night talking to the people I knew rather than turn the people I didn't know into ones I did. My friend talked to me in a scandalous whisper about his love life, or at least he thought he did. What with the volume level, he was really talking at more of a scandalous yell. No matter.

The gathering was at a log cabin, or at least the closest thing to it in suburbia. It was set back from the road with a field beside it where all the people with Jeeps parked. I parked in the driveway because I drive a sedan.

The log cabin had been remodeled to turn each of its floors into single apartments. The hosts of the gathering lived in the bottom half, and so the gathering was there also. I was not there long before I decided that I could not afford to live there. Everything was very nice and clean and modern, and had none of the trademark characteristics of cheap housing. In fact, there was only one quirk that I could see.

The kitchen had two dishwashers.

I asked one of the hosts about the double dishwasher situation, and he explained that putting in a dishwasher was cheaper than putting in extra cabinets. And so they kept the clean dishes in one washer and the dirty ones in another. And they rotated. I think I'd just rather have cabinets.

We left the log cabin with two dishwashers early, because everyone else was leaving and it seemed the thing to do. We left the same people as we arrived, because nothing had happened there; it wasn't even a party.

It was more of a gathering.