[Un-Authorized]

My wife and I vacation annually with the same friends. Thirteen of us split the rent on a large home near the ocean in North Carolina. Almost everyone in the group sings and likes to drink so we don’t miss our yearly karaoke experience. This year my wife begged off as too tried, but had me go under the watchful eyes of our friends.

The crowd was pretty country and the bar pretty divey, perfect for suburban trailer trash like us. I nurse my beer as I take in several songs some performed much better than others. A cute blond twenty- something starts her version of a slightly dirty rap tune and figuring I’ll help her out, I turned a chair around and propped my feet on the stage as she sang. She took the bait, sang to me, and I enjoyed it more than a man married thirty years probably should have.
 
Later, as I approached the stage to sing my infamous version of Radiohead’s “Creep”, I whispered it was time for her to return the favor and she eagerly obliged, placing seat and feet just as I had. When this fifty-six-year-old croons “I’m a creep, I’m a weirdo…” to a lovely young girl, the crowd goes insane. This dark theatrical performance is enthusiastically embraced by the stunned predominantly country crowd.

It’s morning as I write this and knowing the importance of describing my protagonist, I solicit the help of my tablemates that hadn’t ingested as many gin and tonics as I. As fast as I can transcribe, five witnesses ratchet off fedora, gangster, tattoo, testosterone vibe, dark eyes, tanned, barely Caucasian, muscle shirt, bustier vest, ten pounds of shit in a five pound bag and painted-on jeans. She is in her late thirties or early forties and fairly height-weight proportionate. Not at all my type.
 
She picks Bobby Brown’s “Prerogative” and as the song begins, repeatedly begs her family to join her onstage. With one exception, they remain conspicuously absent. When her tablemate suffers through a few lines and abandons her unceremoniously, she is very unhappy. I’ve seen and heard my share of bad karaoke, but when her table chants “Off the stage! Off the stage!” it is a first for me.
 
Undeterred, she convinces the DJ to play a follow-up song with “fuck you” as the chorus and she flips off her family at each stanza. Revenge karaoke. The crowd goes insane a second time this evening. Two women leave her table and join us uninvited and announce that they are not, in fact, related to the performer but had only met her several days ago. Oddly enough, this doesn’t seem out of place considering the circumstances.

Toby Keith’s “Shoulda Been a Cowboy”, right in my range, is my second performance of the evening. Blondie returns to our stage side seat and props her feet. My friend Freda, walking point for my wife, joins her. Cutie tells Freda “I’d like to meet his wife” which, in the din of the bar I heard as “I’d like to be his wife”, to which I replied “Well, maybe just for tonight.” Twenty-something took the joke as well as my wife when Freda ratted me out to the group in the morning.

Joe

[Author]

Posts