((NOTE: I just saw the critique email. I'll work on the points suggested in it in my final draft.))
As I squeeze past a two frazzled-looking families with small children at the door, I mentally chide myself for wearing such a stupid outfit. It's not that I don't like the clothes I'm wearing - semi-baggy jeans, old black sandals whose small brown beads are missing in places, and a very librarianesque, oversized pink sweater - I just don't like them combined. I slip into the back of the small, glass-walled-off square of Bennigan's devoted to 'Karaoke with Dallas' every Friday night, and for once, I'm the first person in our 'party' to arrive. The smell of old alcohol and cigarette smoke assaults me as I pass a full table of seven or eight men and women who've already drunk themselves halfway under the table, and I quickly scrawl my karaoke picks on the back of an orange slip of paper before handing it over to Dallas, who greets me with a warm smile and automatically glances around the room for the other yet-to-arrives.
A small ding from my cellphone, barely audible over the sound of some poor, misguided creature squawking out their apparently self-invented rendition of 'I'm Going Home' that makes the rest of his audience wish that were true, alerts me to the arrival of my friend and her family, though this time they've also brought a family friend, Dani. As the five of us commandeer two back tables and squash their sticky ketchup-coated sides together, my friend Katie explains their tardiness was due to Dani's need to go home and check on her cat. I'm distracted from asking why as a small black girl, eleven years old at most with long, wavy brown hair and wearing a pink sweatshirt over blue jeans begins to sing 'Take A Bow' like an old pro.
Several minutes pass as Katie's parents and Dani order their first round of drinks while making small talk, and I crack open my English journal, proceeding to jot down a few observations while Katie sneaks over to a basket of cutlery and nabs a napkin to turn into a makeshift drink coaster. As a particularly fascinating rendition of 'Summer Nights' sung by a half-drunk, tone-deaf man in baggy pants and a reasonably talented blonde-haired woman in a black and white-striped tee, Dani marches off in search of a songbook and a six or seven year old blonde-haired cutie starts singing Rascall Flatts while grinning impishly at his parents as if to say, 'hello, American Idol'.
"So, Rachel wants to kill her flag team." Katie announces, leaning back in her chair and adjusting her glasses as she slips her list of karaoke picks into her pocket. Her mother, Melody, a rather robust woman with a personality to match, sighs deeply from her far end of the table as she accepts a Pepsi from the waitress. "Again?"
"Yep." Katie replies simply, tapping out a few words on her cellphone's flip-out keypad in response to an instant message. "Apparently they've got a new band director who does nothing, and almost everyone on the team is a freshman."
A collective cringe from everyone at the table results from the word 'freshmen', memories of irritating five-foot-tall parasites with pimples and braces undoubtably invading everyone's memories before being shoved back into mental filing cabinets of memories better off forgotten.
"So, of course," Katie continues, "Almost no one in in the team is taking practice seriously, so Rachel wants to throttle them all with her baton."
Our attention is drawn back to the front of the room as another child, identified as 'Cameron' and six years old at most saunters shyly up to the karaoke screen and is rendered nearly invisible behind its size the moment she steps behind it. As she starts to sing 'Oops I Did It Again', only being interrupted once by Dallas as he compares her to the size of a typical Bennigan's burger, murmurs increase throughout the room at how well she can sing for her age.
As a rather heavy-set woman in a bright blue top begins to croak along loudly to the music, Dani gives me a sideways glance over the top of her glass, an evil glint in her eyes.
"So, what's with the librarian outfit?" She asks, a wide grin taking over her thin face. Katie's stepfather, Steve, immediately tunes in to the conversation, glad for any opportunity to make librarian jokes, which will almost inevitably lead to jokes about Sarah Palin. I feel my face grow slightly warm as I pout.
"My contacts have been acting screwy." I offer, and Dani reaches for her bag, pulling a rather scratched pair of Tina Fey glasses from out of its depths.
"You should try there. They're a bit messed up since I just drop them in, normally, but..." Dani hands them to me, and I dutifully replace my pink-framed glasses with the newly offered ones, and, sure enough-
"They make you look like Sarah Palin." Even unable to see an inch in front of my face, I can picture the gigantic, contagious grin plastered across Steve's face and I'm silently thrilled that I can't see the contorted half-smiles of everyone else at the table as they fight unsuccessfully to suppress their mirth. I yank the glasses off my nose and hand them back to Dani before snatching my own back up out of a growing puddle of condensation from my own Pepsi. I'm saved from any more Palin jokes for the moment as Dallas calls Dani and Melody up to sing 'Does He Love You', and I'm surprised to realize the Dani being called is the same one sitting next to me, as I only recall hearing Dani sing maybe once before. She easily matches Melody's own virtually flawless voice and the crowd claps appreciatively as they resume their seats.
"So, Sarah." Steve grins at me once more, all too happy to resume the previous conversation, "You going to be singing anything tonight?" I give him my goofiest smile and bob a fist as I giggle, "Darn tootin'!"
The next two hours pass the same as always - more Sarah Palin jokes than I can possibly remember, some rather provocative dances from drunk patrons who are reminded more than once by their peers that they're as gifted in dance as they are vocally, and first-hand accounts of some of the most bizarre 911 cases experienced by Steve, including something about a 2x4, screaming, paramedic shears and '300 cops in 5 seconds.'
As I gather my things together to head home for the night, Katie taps me on the arm and holds up her cellphone, whose screen is flashing and shining text messages in turns, and I have to squint to make out the words crammed onto the two-inch screen in unfathomably small letters.
"You've seen this, right?" I glance over the message and laugh, nodding that yes, I have seen the song lyrics she's referring to, and it's still as dumb as it was the first time I saw it back in middle school, when I was still 200 lbs. with an unintentional fly-away, wannabe-straight-haired afro of sorts.
Re, the guy who pours my beer.
Mi, the one that drinks my beer,
Fa, a long way to the john.
So, I'll have another beer.
La, I'll have another beer.
Ti? No thanks, I'll have a beer.
And that brings us back to...''
I wave goodbye to the small crowd clustered around our table that's become a sort of second family to me, and I grin slightly as Cameron's mother shoots a wary sideways glance towards Katie's back, apparently still unsure what to make of Katie's recent rendition of a popular song by a J-Pop singer named Gackt.
I climb into my blue Volkswagen Beetle, feeling happy to have gotten rid of some of the stresses of college, homework and family, though more than a little sleepy and slightly sad that the night has already come to an end. But there's always next Friday, and, observation assignment or not, I know my friends will be here, and so will I.
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