The friend who stayed through the ordinary cleanup deserves a place in the story of the wonderful evening.

The evening people remember is the part with the music in it. What gets edited out is the hour afterwards, the plates, the folding of chairs, the friend still there at midnight with a tea towel while everyone else is telling taxi drivers what a night it was. That hour is where the affection actually showed.

When you tell the story of a good night, put the people who stayed to help inside it. Thank them the next day by name and by what they did. Better still, be one of them sometimes, and find out how different a party looks from the kitchen at the end.