Karaoke...oh, boy.

One of the lesser highlights of the holidays for me was visiting with my best friend from high school, Katie. I guess it's always a shock when you realize someone from your past is now entirely irrelevant to your life. However, this realization will neither prevent me from having to deal with her nor help me forget the whole fucking night.

The original plan was that I'd hang out with Katie the Saturday before Christmas Eve. I work Saturdays until 5pm and I had to go to work on Sunday for 10am, so the window was tight. The better idea would have been for Katie, who has a car, to drive to Boston to meet me for a drink and dinner and then head home. Perfect idea. Sensible, relaxing, fun even. But, her manipulative, ever-interfering, 50-something, bleach blonde, straw haired, too tan leatherface, perpetually dressed like a trashy teenage whore of a mother, Beth, had planned every moment of Katie's visit home and decided that Katie HAD to hang out with Kristin, Beth's latest 20 something best friend on the same night Katie planned to hang out with me. I could, of course, come along, but Beth didn't want Katie and I to play 'remember when' all night and ignore Kristin. It was quite clear at that point that this night already wished I wasn't included.

This ladies' night of fun, booze, and karaoke would take place at a local bar in Plaistow, NH called The Corner Pocket with the rest of their karaoke posse (more on them later). First, I hate New Hampshire. Second, I hate Plaistow. Third, I hate Plaistow, NH townies. Fourth, I HATE karaoke. Fifth, I don't like Katie's mom. Since Katie lives in Orlando, I felt like I really wanted to see her for Christmas and she was also bringing home her boyfriend she just moved in with, so I went against my gut feeling and agreed to this plan. I am, after all, 'the best friend.' So, the actual idea came down to rushing from work, taking the commuter rail home, Katie and Beth's boyfriend Brian picked me up, and we went home to wait for Beth to finish tarting up her hagalicious face getting ready. We would then meet Katie's fancy Aunt Nancy (who I like, huge fake boobs and all) and I would sleep over their house, and they would bring me to the commuter rail in the morning so I could then rush to work. What I am getting at here is I went way out of my way to attend this catastrophe.

I was told I would like Kristin because 'she goes to hair school.' Since I neither go to hair school, nor do hair, I failed to see the logic, but I said ok. Katie told me Beth has sort of adopted her as a daughter because Kristin had lost her mom when she was a teen. Obviously, my first question was, "Is she fat?" Katie informed that it was so, but she didn't know how fat just yet. I hoped she was, at the very least, uglyfaced. In the car, while Brian was picking up a pizza, Katie confirmed that she was, indeed, fat. "Bigger than me at least?" I asked. "Bigger than both of us together." What a relief. Then Katie said Kristin was wearing a tube top and I knew we would have at least a little bit of fun that night. Katie also mentioned she and her mother had gotten into a fight earlier that evening and that I had to be nice to Kristin. My response to Katie was, "I am 22 years old, not 15. I don't have to be nice to anyone I don't want to." Katie seemed annoyed by that and said, "Well, I have to be around my mother so, I will." I said fine, but I was not about to adopt Katie and her mother's fake personalities for the evening. I said if I like her, then I like her, if I don't, then who the fuck cares. I then mentioned how I think it's weird we're going out with her mother and Katie said, "No, my mom's really fun when she gets wasted" to which I responded, "I don't WANT to get wasted with your mom."

When we got to the house, I felt like I had just walked into a broken home. The vibe was so strange. The house was filled with Christmas decorations, but it all felt stale and forced and I got really nervous. The solution: eat pizza obvs. After watching Katie's brother Chris' dance video (he's a dance instructor [yeesh]), meeting Kristin (yikes) and Katie's wet-loaf-of-bread boyfriend, Joe, we ate food and chatted awkwardly until Katie's mom was done putting the finishing touches on her fiasco of a head. Kristin mentioned she doesn't wear underwear in passing and I realized no underwear + tube top = no undergarments at all = EL GROSSO! Joe was wearing light wash tapered jeans with teva sandals, no socks, and a t shirt with an embroidered spider. That's not a joke or anything...it's just sadly true. I was then informed of the blanket and pillows in the drawer for when we come home totally trashed so I can sleep on the couch love seat. Katie quietly told me her mom let Kristin have the guest room, you know, the one with the BED because she didn't think I was going to sleepover. I guess she figured I would just fly back to Boston. Or maybe do that thing in Mary Poppins where you wink, think, do a double blink and jump
to your destination. I decided then that I was going to go with the gut feelings for the rest of the evening cause, fuck these people amirite?

When we arrive at the Corner Pocket, the first person I see is Cindy. I worked with Cindy when I was in high school. At Larry's Clam Bar. Larryland was a family owned and operated seafood restaurant. Larry ran the kitchen, Verna ran the restaurant. Larry's brothers Sherman and Herman, sister Joanne, and daugher Valerie worked the kitchen along with Patrick, an African man from Cameroon (who was probably in love with me), while Laurie ran the ice cream section with her husband Gus. Cindy, 43ish, rides a moped, had worked there since high school and, at $7.85/hr I was paid more than she was. Needless to say, she's slow. I said "Hey Cindy!" (she was, after all, one of my daily highlights working there [second only to The Hat Lady and her boyfriend, Irving]). Cindy informed me The Corner Pocket was her hangout and she was there EVERY SATURDAY. Then she introduced me to her friends: everyone at the bar! Lovelies included the guy with no teeth, a table of geriatric couples, and a red faced lady with a cowboy hat. I felt nauseous in the smoky, dank, mustard yellow and pea soup green awful hole in the earth. When drinks were ordered (white zinfandel for Beth, sex on the beach for Katie, mich ultra for Nancy) I stuck to captain and coke. I
could get away with drinking one and say it was strong and pretend drunk I figured.

What I haven't yet mentioned is that Beth's occupation is karaoke. She has her own night at a doppelganger bar somewhere else in NH where actual deaf people have a shot at local stardom...only if the other patrons clap loud enough when their names are called so they know when go to up and sing. Because she and Katie are both born histrionics, they have practice seshes before going out and bring their own karaoke cds. This embarrasses me to no end when I realize it. Not because of the other people around, but just inside me. In my heart, I know this is embarrassing. Beth also invented something called a Twat Box for her regulars. Short for Repertoire Box, it's a box of cards for each person of songs they regularly sing with their cd codes already filled out. The performer is then to just open up the Twat Box, grab a card, and their entertainment for the evening is decided. This story is something I find actually amusing and for a moment, I thought, Let me give this night a fighting chance.

Once everyone sang their country songs and was on their second drink and I was still a quarter of the way into my first, the posse had arrived. At that point, I decided Kristin wasn't so bad and I didn't have much to make fun of her about. She's isn't ugly, her makeup didn't suck, her hair was boring, but ok, she wore a sweater with the tube top...all that was left was her psoriasis, but like, that's not interesting to make fun of. Caridee on Top Model ruined that for all of us. So, a pretty girl named Sabrina, a woman with a sad case of alopecia + fug named Michelle, and a lovely dyke named Kegga arrived. Kegga is the only decent personality among them. She dresses like a dude, has that short spiky deal going on up top, can rock the karaoke, she brings her own pink camouflage zip up beer cozy, and makes excellent lesbiana jokes.

Example:
Katie: Your hair got long Kegga!
Kegga: Ehhhh...the dyke spikes are looking a little droopy.
All: LOLZ.

Some skinny toothless dude got up to sing YET ANOTHER COUNTRY SONG while his dumpy fat wifey with inch long poodle perm humped him from behind and did that tongue licky thing near his ear and it was then that I decided to keep quiet and wait for the night to be over.

That was really hard to do actually since the night seemed to never end. I did end up finishing my drink and ordered a Heineken..again something to drink slowly. Katie then got up to go to the bathroom and I went with her. After I peed I was looking in the mirror and another woman came into the bathroom. When Katie came out of the stall with her skirt up around her waist and asked "Should I go back out like this?!" the woman cracked up while I didn't even turn around to see what she was talking about. Subsequently, that woman wouldn't leave us alone for the rest of the night and told us about 8 times she was a teacher for high school and she's seen worse things in the bathroom. THX LADY OK BYE CUL8R! I Katie's words: "If I was friends with everyone who'd seen my ass, I'd be friends with EVERYONE!"

I asked what time we planned to leave and Katie said 1...as in 1am. Being only 10:30 I pulled the old I-Have-To-Work-In-The-Morning deal and Katie said Brian and Joe were going to come around 11 and they could drive me home. Somehow in between this discussion and when the men arrived, Katie got upset with her mother and went outside. I didn't quite follow...what I did do was grab all the dollar bills and quarters I could find for the stuffed animal claw game and the m&m vending machine! I figured I could do that until the guys take me home. True highlight of my evening actually. Then Katie met her mom in the bathroom and the drama began.

They holed themselves up in there crying and yelling at each other like teenagers. Apparently the issue was that Beth had quit smoking for 6 months and was on Wellbutrin for depression (side effects include: anxiety, confusion, dizziness, agitation and also AVOID DRINKING ALCOHOL while taking Wellbutrin) as well as Klonopin for panic attacks (use alcohol cautiously. Alcohol may increase drowsiness and dizziness while taking Klonopin) yet, she chainsmoked and had three glasses of white zinfandel. It's interesting to note that Wellbutrin's side effects include anxiety attacks and Klonopin's side effects include depression. This awkward time lasted about 45 minutes as I left several phone messages for my mom to come pick me up and made awkward conversation with Brian and Joe. And just before midnight, we were ready to get out of there just in time to avoid the people from high school that had started arriving! Things were really looking up. I guess the second highlight would be that Brian settled our tab and I didn't have to pay for a thing. FREE AWFUL NIGHT FOR EVERYONE!

On the way home to my mom's house (I opted out of the enticing loveseat sleepover), Beth apologized for ruining everyone's night. I accepted her apology and told her she still looked pretty even though she cried a lot. I can be nice sometimes. I woke up to my confused mom at 6 am and told her the whole deal and thanked her for being the best mom ever and the only one I could ever love.

Aw. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

-Gem

Ps- I forgot to mention that somewhere in there all the old people grinded on each other to the Pussycat Dolls 'Loosen up my buttons.' I wasn't drunk enough to actually barf, but I had the vom spirit.

PPs - I didn't win anything in the vending machine. :(

BTW - this post says LEWIS did it, but it's really Gem's.