A Song to Pass the Time

May 17th, 2007

First of all, I have to come clean about yesterday’s Mike’s Hard Lemonade episode: I was kind of an asshole about it, and in the cold, rational light of morning, I’m horrified, and I may never shop at my favorite supermarket again, which pains me, just PAINS ME, because I love to grocery shop. LOVE. I’m fascinated by the amount of products available! The sauces! Ethnic spices! Wide array of brined vegetables! I could spend an entire afternoon perusing the sandwich toppings alone!

But I digress. I’d had a long day – a really, really long day that started with getting stood up for an 8:30 a.m. meeting, and ended with a party I was covering; a party where I didn’t talk to anyone beyond professional inquiries, nor was I drinking, nor was I eating, as it’s the way I roll at these types of events, but for some reason, it made me very, very cranky this time. I was starving and thirsty and so flipping tired, and watching other people whoop it up made me wish I could throw a toddler-level tantrum and storm out of the room. You know that tiredness where you just want to whine because you can’t figure out what’s WRONG with you, because everything aches! Everything! And you are tired! And hungry! And uncomfortable, Mom!

(I’m not proud of this. I was a brat who should be shot.)

Ergo, when I arrived at the supermarket and took out an entire display of Mike’s Hard Cranberry Lemonade, I all but screeched at the first supermarket employee that I saw that while I was very, very sorry that I knocked over giant chunks of glass, I could not BELIEVE that someone would set up a glass display – GLASS! – so close to the door of the frozen foods, where it could be knocked over! Over! And worse, it was ALCOHOL. THERE WAS ALCOHOL IN GLASS RIGHT NEXT TO THE COOL WHIP. What would the children think? That the only way to enjoy dessert was with LIQUOR? WAY TO SEND A MESSAGE.

(Okay, I didn’t say that last bit about the children, but oh my God, I was thisclose.)

(Also, I apologized three more times, not only for knocking over the glass, but for acting like it was totally their fault. Am psycho and also unstable. And whiny.)

I know. I’m such a jerk. I’m sorry. I am sufficiently embarrassed, and I totally deserved to get pummeled with cloying heartburn-inducing beverages.

Anyway. More importantly, there was a water main break in our neighborhood tonight, which prevented us from eating at our usual haunt, and we ended up eating at a diner a few blocks up. Dude, it was karaoke night, and I really would have appreciated some sort of notice on that before we launched into our entrees. It happened so fast. One minute I was cheerfully surveying my chicken sandwich, and the next, a man in his late 60s wearing skintight jeans, a bowtie and a toupee was setting up a karaoke machine and before I even knew what hit me, a…karaoke enthusiast was warbling his way through Tears On My Pillow, and I felt a very acute pain in my heart (caaauuused by yooooou! YOOOOUUUUU!) when he lost track of the words and started making them up, and at one point he was having “tears in his parlor” and “pain in his…”

his…

his…

“STAA-RT, over…”

“over…”

*swaying awkwardly*

“Over…”

*long pause*

“MOOOOOOVES”

Honestly, the only thing worse than that moment was the Valentine’s Day dinner we spent while an enormous woman wearing flaming red spandex hulked over us as she wailed “My Guy,” pausing only to stick the microphone in diners’ faces, where they feebly offered, “my guuuyyy” in-between bites of pumpkin ravioli.

Seriously, y’all. Karaoke. In a strip mall diner.

Have a great weekend.

*Bright Eyes. I really loathe him and yet there it is. But who doesn’t want to knock Conor Oberst in the head?

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