Everyone Sounds Like Neil Diamond!

As I sat yesterday afternoon at my friend's house, listening to her daughter's shrieks of delight as she unwrapped birthday present after birthday present, most of us ladies sat in the kitchen, munching on vegetables and drinking margaritas as we discussed our plans for the evening. We decided a celebration was in order for our friend, given that she, after losing her job in December, had finally landed a new one, which she'll start on March 1. What better way to celebrate a friend gaining employment in a down economy, I thought, than by going to a local watering hole and singing karaoke?

And so, at eight o'clock yesterday evening, four of us ladies met up at our friend's house to caravan to that local watering hole.

We arrived at the bar around 8:30 p.m., knowing that the party wouldn't really get started for a couple of hours, which would give us plenty of time to warm up our voices. We signed up for some songs and I bought my friend a margarita, congratulating her again on the new job.

As the minutes ticked by and the bar began to fill up, we all, with the exception of our very sober designated driver, became relatively tipsy.

"Hey Elizabeth, I left my phone in my car," my friend told me. "Will you come with me to get it?" I donned my jacket and excused myself from the table. The guy on stage was singing Don McLean's "American Pie."

It took a while for her to find it, but she finally did, and when we reentered the bar, she was surprised.

"He is still singing that song?" I giggled. There are several songs that should be outlawed to sing karaoke. American Pie, which has a runtime of eight minutes and 34 seconds, is one of them.

"Yep. Same song," one of the bouncers told her.

"Oh, thank God. I began to think someone had slipped something into my drink and that I was hallucinating," she said.

"He's going to mess up the whole rotation," I said, rolling my eyes. This was true. The only thing that could be worse than someone singing "American Pie," would be someone else jumping in the rotation to sing Frank Zappa's "Adventures of Greggery Peccary," which clocks in at 20:33.

We returned to our seats, still grumbling about the inconsideration of the man on stage. The next song would be sung by the karaoke jockey, who, after several beers, was beginning to sound--to me, anyway--like Neil Diamond.

I leaned over to one of my friends. "Do you realize that he sounds exactly like Neil Diamond?" I said. "Sweet Caroline would have been a much better choice for him," I told her as he continued to belt out an O.A.R. song.

After the song ended, a gentleman got up to sing a Pearl Jam tune, and I'll be damned if he didn't sound like Neil Diamond, too. I leaned over to my friend again to share my thoughts with her. She laughed, but I began to wonder if I'd been drugged. I hadn't had that much to drink, had I?

"I think I should stop drinking," I told my friend. "Everyone is starting to sound like Neil Diamond." I was beginning to think this was God's way of telling me that I should not have gone back on my word. I had, after all, just days earlier, proclaimed that I would give up alcohol for Lent, and here I was with my friends. In a bar. Drinking.

I am thankful, though, to be able to report that, throughout the rest of the evening, no one else sounded like Neil Diamond. Someone did, however, thrill us with Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love"--in the style of Bob Dylan. I'm not sure which is worse.