Hot Shots

I almost don't even know where to begin.

Last night began in a most innocuous fashion. Garrett and I were getting together with Jeremy and Hilary to have some drinks and play some pool because, heck -- it was almost Friday -- which in my opinion demands a weekly celebration, and besides we always have so much damn fun with them! Do you have those kind of friends? You know, the ones who you could call on a Friday night if you wanted to have an evening of intelligent conversation over a glass of Cabernet, but who you could also call the following night and invite over to have a pitcher of PBR and spend the whole night telling fart jokes and listening to New Edition all the while waxing philosophical about American Idol? God, I love those kinds of friends! They're just so great! And Jeremy and Hilary seriously live up to that kinda hype, so consequently we force them to hang out with us as much as humanly possible.

(By the way, if you guys are reading this, sorry I just outed you guys for liking fart jokes. Or PBR. Whichever is more offensive.)

Anyway, a week or two earlier they had discovered this dive by their house that advertised pool and "entertainment", and since Garrett and I had just recently brushed up on our billiards at the Lost Coast Brewery last weekend, we thought it would be fun to exercise our mediocre pool skills, and of course our very above average shit talking skills. So we get to this place, and despite the fact that it is in a strip mall, and all patrons are required to screw in their own lightbulbs over the table if they want an illuminated game, it looked like it was going to be a pretty fun time. I mean they sold Hot Pockets and Costco Chicken Bakes at the snack bar, for god's sake, nothing says "classy" like meaty, cheesy, bready pouches of saturated fat -- frozen in single servings for your convenience.

So being that it was relatively early, it seemed we had our pick of the pool tables. Unfortunately though, we were informed that the table that we had chosen was unavailable because shortly it would be used as the karaoke stage. That's right, KARAOKE. STAGE. Ohmagod, this night was about to get even better. So Hilary and I blew a fiver at the juke box playing some clutch "oldies" like November Rain (how much do I miss Guns'n'Roses?) and some LL Cool J from his days of better judgment (LL, seriously? A duet with J.Lo? What were you thinking?) and we all just generally enjoyed each others company and the frosty beer mugs for a good hour. And then, dear reader, the craziness began.

So somewhere in that timespan, a young lady (and by the way I'm using that term loosely) arrived wearing quite the striking ensemble which consisted of a denim ultra-mini-skirt and a turquoise ruffley tube top. Now, as we all know it's getting hot out, and I realize that when this happens, inevitably the "night-out-on-the-town" outfits get smaller and smaller. That being said, I feel fairly safe asserting that if your gross body weight exceeds 400 lbs, a mini-skirt and tube combo is not the most flattering of options. I think you would agree with me, no? Now I'm not one to hate on the voluptuous figures, being that my own definitely doesn't qualify me for any Miss Fitness USA contests, but come on...use some common sense! Needless to say she was attracting quite a bit of attention, and I think she was kind of liking it. This only increased when she decided to kickoff the night of karaoke by doing her rendition of Adina Howard's vulgar 90s hit "Freak Like Me", to which the bartender promptly responded to by letting us know that it would take a lot more than "a roughneck brother" to satisfy her. Fret not though, because she immediately followed up this assertion of freakiness by escorting a gentleman friend (whose status as a "roughneck brother" had yet to be determined, for the record) into the single stall bathrooms right next to our pool table. And to think we were initially bummed that our first choice table was being turned into karaoke headquarters. Huh.

So while our lady and gentleman friends were busy in the loo doing -- well, whatever it is people do inside public bathrooms at pool halls that sell Hot Pockets -- the karaoke continued. We were treated to a cheeky rendition of the Commodores uber-smash "Night Shift", and something else fairly unmemorable before Hilary finally decided to get up and basically show everyone who was boss by singing "What a Feeling!". By this time, lady and gentleman had left the bathroom (and fairly quickly I might add, for what its worth) and were chasing each other around swearing. I wasn't really sure how to interpret that, except to maybe assume that their idea of a pre-party had involved prescription drugs mixed with some milder form of PCP, but at that point I was kind of bored with them and had moved onto being fascinated by the MIDGET. SINGING. JANIS. JOPLIN.

You think I'm joking.

I almost wish I was.

But alas, there she sang in all her 4 feet of glory, and it was at that point that I had a major realization. Up until that exact moment, it had never occured to me that a good karaoke singer must not only have the hard to find combination of drunken fearlessness, great pipes, and a lively stage presence -- but that on top of all that, a major factor that apparently lends itself to awe-inspiring performances (or not for that matter) is LITERACY! I mean really, who knew? It was a lightbulb moment for me, kinda like when I was 18 and went away to college and I realized that when you live alone and you leave dishes in the sink, no one does them for you. Profound, I tell you. So later on in the evening the midget again practiced her phonics skills to the beat of Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart", and while I would say that it was by far her best performance of the night, I wasn't quite comfortable betting that she could read the streets signs outside, or find her way home without a chaperone.

Aside from all the horrid singing, or rather the "kinda pitchy" vocals that would have made Randy Jackson shake his head and say "I don't know, dawg" we were treated to a few gems of the country persuation when a delightful young whippersnapper belted out Reba McIntyre's "The Night the Lights Went out in Georgia", but then she had to ruin it when she got up with all her drunk friends and sang AfroMan's "Because I Got High", which, although a revolutionary anthem for some segment of the population, I'm sure, is just kinda boring to watch drunk co-eds sing.

Meanwhile back at the bathroom, our lady and gentleman had reconvened. I think they were maybe going back there to hold hands and tell Bible stories or something, but they were rudely interupted by another woman opening the bathroom door that [shocker] they had forgotten to lock. I think they were right in the middle of talking about the serpent and the tree of knowledge, but I can't be sure. Unfortunately for our gentleman friend, his pants were sadly around his ankles, and something about the gust of fresh air had knocked some sense into our lady friend, and she was out the door. Slowly and lamely, the gentleman pulled up his pants and grabbed his belongings that he had temporarily been storing on the FLOOR OF THE PUBLIC BATHROOM -- and then quickly he rushed off to find his Princess Charming, who had run outside to answer a very pressing cell phone call and sip on a Smirnoff Raspberry Ice (give the girl a break, she was probably thirsty after all that "storytelling"). Oh, and did I mention that as he walked by, the gentleman accidentally dropped his boxer shorts right at Garrett's feet as he was taking a shot? I'd like to think he was leaving as a good luck charm, or as some cheer of male-billiard-solidarity, but alas I think I might have just been seeing the situation through rose colored glasses.

Basically the night was all around awesome. It was the kind of night you couldn't script, because no one would believe it actually happened. Especially at the end, when Jeremy ceremoniously sank the 8-ball at the exact moment that Slash's guitar riff ended "Welcome to the Jungle". Just too much fun! And I decided after last night, if every Thursday has the potential to be full of this much mid-week madness, I might just start acquiring a taste for Hot Pockets.