So yesterday was whacked…
First off, I made the grave mistake of going to the Starbucks cafe inside our very lovely new Barnes & Noble for lunch. They have exactly one thing available for lunch: paninis. So I guess I’ll have… let’s see…. a PANINI!!! Which is just a fancy schmancy term for grilled cheese. Seriously. I had a grilled cheese with ham… but in order to charge $6 for it, they call it a panini. I actually wanted the potato leek soup but that was another $4.50 so I passed. I also got some Blackberry Sage tea. I wanted iced because I’m still in denial about the cold weather, but alas, they only had Mango Ceylon iced tea premade. I don’t know what the hell Ceylon is, but apparently it makes Mangoes taste like ass cheese…. I’ve been duped by the Mango Ceylon before. I just want my Blackberry Sage tea, people, can’t you just give in to my need for simplicity and be done with it? Why do you have to mess with my life? Just give me an iced tea and a grilled cheese, ok?
Where was I? Oh yes…
They declared that they could not possibly give me Blackberry Sage iced tea…. only Blackberry Sage HOT tea. Now, it is true that I am not a true connoisseur of the coffee/hot beverage genre, but I just didn’t understand their crazy barista logic. I mean, iced tea is hot tea made cold… right? Or must it be cold pressed through Swiss ice or something?
“How about you give me the hot tea and a big glass with ice in it?” I ask, stupefied.
“Oh, yeah, we could do that.” They said as if this had never dawned upon them.
Barista girls, those trendy retro little hair kerchief things you wear should not be tied so tight that functioning in reality becomes a problem for you. Stop tightening them when you start to feel your temples throb, ok?
They give me my venti tea and a smaller, normal cup filled with ice. I looked at it dubiously. “I need a bigger cup than that,” I said, “if I want to pour the hot tea over the ice.”
“The cups are the same size. It will fit.” The blonde barista assured.
I looked rather dubious, but I know about Piaget’s whole conservation deal in human development and know that I have a problem with object displacement conservation, so I try to cover my perceived stupidity and just take the two cups and walk to my car. By the time the hot tea had finished brewing, I dumped it into the “same size” ice glass…. until the iced glass was full and I still had half a cup of hot tea in my hand.
Damned baristas!
So my day kind of went downhill from that point, despite the fact that I had my magic happy socks on. But I had karaoke to look forward to. I went home, changed my clothes, read my email/diaries/etc, slapped on some more warpaint and went to Karaoke.
Although a bunch of people were supposed to meet me for a Club Weetabix, no one was there at 8:00. Fine. Whatever. I looked cute. I am secure enough to sit alone in a bar. Finally Jason showed up and made me a non-loser.
Joel and Cheri popped in at 9:00. Scott told me later that Joel assumed that since he was always late to things that I was lying and undercutting the actual karaoke starting time so that he wouldn’t be late… therefore if I told him 8 o’clock, it wouldn’t really start until 9 o’clock. Um. Wrong. Don’t include me in your late zone dysfunction. Phhhh. I don’t know if that’s how to spell it, but that’s all I have to say about that.
Joel has this very strange karaoke curse going on. He’s very adventurous, almost to a fault. The man adores singing songs that he has no right to be singing… songs which are so high I wouldn’t even touch them. But he gives it a go. Sometimes it’s not bad. And sometimes it’s not a pretty picture. He’s also got this strange talent for picking songs which include a humongous 46 measure instrumental bit… the kind that leaves you standing up on a half-ass stage, holding a microphone, realizing what a colossal karaoke tool you really are for about two minutes.
He was going to attempt “Bohemian Rhapsody”. Freddy Mercury was an amazing voice. I am in Freddy’s range… as a mezzo soprano. Joel is seriously a tenor or baritone… he does a fabulous job at “Ring of Fire” and that “Mmm mmmm mmm mmm” song by the Crash Test Dummies. So as a pity maneuver, I offered to go up with him and sing the beginning.
Mistake.
I didn’t do too terribly. Right as I went up to sing, however, Mr. Born To Run walked in. Born To Run Guy is a guy who is ALWAYS at the Ass Splinter Karaoke Bar and he’s got an incredible voice. Apparently, he’s in a rock band on the weekends. And when he sings “Born to Run”, which is one of my favorite songs of all time, I want to leave my husband and kitties, sell all of my belongs, wrap my legs around his gorgeous rims and strap my hands across his engines.
Thankfully, there are only a few songs which make me go week in the knees and get all gushy, otherwise life would be very different indeed.
Born To Run Guy walked in and then started to look at the karaoke books. Then I got embarrassed. I mean, here I was, Miss Girlie Songs and Ballads, up there doing one of the greatest rock anthems. I would forever in his eyes be thought of as a Karaoke Dork who has no talent for rock and roll…. which is true, but I didn’t want Born To Run Guy thinking it!
So the song started and thankfully, I was able to pull out a fairly good girlie Freddie Mercury. Then… when it got low and Joel started… it got ugly. First off, he was doing air guitar. There is not a single action in this wide world that make me feel more empathic embarrassment than air guitar. I cringe… CRINGE I SAY!… when I see someone playing the air axe. That is an activity which is best left to Tom Cruise wearing Raybans, a white oxford shirt and a flawless pair of tighty whities.
And of course, in the middle of the song, enormous portion with no words on the screen in which the recorded voices did all of the whacked opera parts… which was the WHOLE REASON I CAME UP THERE: TO DO THE WACKED OPERA PART FOR HIM. God help me.
At the end of the song, we announced that we would never attempt that song again. The bar broke into a raucous applause. There was much rejoicing.
I think the Ass Splinter experience was less humiliating. I mean, at least I got jewelry out of that.
