karaoke superstar

I love karaoke.

I'm not sure why. I'm not the worst singer in the world, but I'm certainly not going to win American Idol anytime soon. I suppose I like the fact that it gives me a chance to feel like a superstar for a couple of minutes. Of course my friends and I do the obligatory group songs, where you have a group of girls who are all off key trying to sing a song that they know the chorus to but not the verses. I am guilty of being a part of that group. We're getting better though. We have adopted Journey 'Don't Stop Believin' as our song, and I think everyone knows every word to that song.

Last Saturday night I went to a small town bar to sing karaoke. Just for the record, small town bars are the best place to sing karaoke. There are less people, and they've usually had more to drink so they think you sound better than you actually do. I also haven't run into many karaoke whores at this particular bar.

I define karaoke whore as the girl (or guy I suppose) who takes karaoke way too seriously. They are the one who wants to sing every song, gets pissed if someone else sings 'their' song and is just waiting for someone to discover them. I actually knew a girl who carried her song cards around with her in a ziploc baggie. She would also get pissed everytime she didn't win a karaoke contest. She never won. Not even once.

So Saturday night I sang some Patsy Cline, Nancy Sinatra, Janis Joplin, and of course we did Journey. None of these did I do particularly well, but it was fun.

I also managed to meet a few interesting people over the course of the evening. There was a hitchhiker from Washington (maybe? I don't remember) he said he didn't have to work for a few months so he thought he would just go see the states. The first thing he said when he walked up was "this is one of the few places I've been where you could go make snow angels in the middle of the street and no one would care". Of course at that point I suggested we go make snow angels in the street but was shot down because it could cause frostbite on the ass.

After his snow angels comment he asked how we ended up in this small town bar, because according to him everyone who is in a bar like that has a story. Our story pales in comparison to his. I asked him what he was doing and he said that he was hitchhiking and I asked him why. He said that he just wanted to see the states because he hadn't seen much of them, his exact words were "yeah I just wanted to see the states I had never been to, have you ever been to Peru?" He then ran off to sing the worst version of "Poker Face" I have ever heard.

Did I mention that he had a lazy eye? There seems to be an epidemic of those lately.

The night was pretty bizarre. I ended up staying in this small town, waking up in the middle of nowhere next to some cows. I also met a guy that looks like a hobbit, and another one who was wearing a sweater vest.

The sweater vest was a little creepy. He called and texted me a million times. The last one said "when can I see you again, I'm like a kid in a candy store."

Really? How do I manage to get myself into these situations?

I have a freak magnet.