What if you hosted a party and nobody came? Or worse, only one person came, so you had to put on a brave face for hours until the event was over and you could have a good, long cry?

It would be damn tempting to never have a party again. Or at least not a Soulard Mardi Gras parade pre-party.

But at some point during the long year between one Lent and the next, it occurred to me that maybe, just maybe, there was another perspective on why people who had partied with me in the past didn’t return.