Ladies and Gentlemen, brace yourself for a tale of unreasonably epic proportions. This is going to be long - you might want to get some snacks.

My friend Sarah and I have been planning to go to karaoke on Wednesday nights at our favorite bar, Jaberwoke (yea, like that mythical beast), for quite some time. It is our favorite bar, mostly because she knows all the bartenders and gets free/hugely discounted drinks all the time - and gives them to me.

So last Wednesday night we went. Not a soul I know could have predicted what happened that night. If you were to tell me the course of events that would unfurl I would have tossed my beard at you so fast you would have choked on it; I would not have believed a word.

The night begins with me grabbing some Taco Bell and heading to Sarah's place. I am eating supreme soft shell tacos as she is filling out an application for another Nanny job. She and her male roomate bicker and argue over petty things while I eat, observe, and laugh easily to myself.

I suggest that we leave soon to get to the bar so we can look at the song list ahead of time to identify the winnow. She said "what?". And I was like "You know, the good stuff, the winnow from the chaff - forget it let's just go."

We get to jaberwoke and claim a table. I get a drink and don't pay. I sip casually. Idle banter ensues and, before you know it, Sarah's friends come to join us.

For the record, I would like to note that everyime I go out with Sarah and she says she is going to have some friends meet us, they are different people EVERY time. Aside from the usuals we always see at the bar, this woman must be connected to everyone in Charlottesville somehow. Probably due to the fact that she is a performer in a small city, but still, it makes for interesting times. Like this one.

Getting back to the story - we move to a larger table to accomodate the rest of the party. We are introduced, we drink, and I notice that I am getting hard stares by one of her guy friends - hm, ok. I later figure out the two guy friends that came with her were gay. Not only that, they used to go out and now they don't. Great, gay tension. Anyway, the one staring me down was just weird - the other guy was this rastafarian looking black guy with huge dreads. He was cool - so far.

Some random girls who are friends of the gay guys come and joined us. They weren't particularly interesting to talk to, nor were they attractive, so I paid them no mind.

Soon enough, the table in front of us become populated with a ton of people in extremely outlandish clothing. Something that was obviously coordinated. I ask about them, and Sarah tells me she doesn't know who they are. Except the one guy, this odd seed with large camo pants, and nothing but a black tie and black vest (the kind thats supposed to be worn over a shirt, but wasnt, so part of his torso could be seen). Oh, and that he was gay - oh, and he had asked about me on a previous night when I was there.

Wonderful. At this point I was pretty upset that the only attention I was getting way of the homosexual persuasion.

I finish making my list of songs and Sarah's friend Carlos busts in. Carlos is amazing. He's this early 30's Spanish physics researcher that works at UVA, but he's a fucking blast, and is great at karaoke. He's my favorite Spanish person.

Karaoke finally starts around 11 pm much to my dismay. I showed this by yelling and being generally boisterous. My aviators were in my pocket but not on yet.

As soon as the performances begin I begin bellowing hard. Random stuff like "Tear it up!", "Woo!" and "Yea!". I am starting to make myself known - I have to warm up the karakoke audience to my presence slowly.

After a few extremely terrible performances, I go up for my first performance with my group. We did the summer of 69 - a nice warm up tune, nothing special. We were well received. My drinks seem to be getting stronger, but I'm pretty sure I didn't pay much mind to it.

Almost immediately after that we all went up again for Oasis' Champagne Supernova - I had a mic in my hand this time cause some random came up last time to sing with us and took it. I managed a pretty good Liam Gallagher brit accent impression - Aviators were on by this point.

Might I mention there was this woman at the table in front of us who had to be a regular at karaoke because everytime she went up she get tons of recognition and applause. She had a pretty good voice, too. A
pretty girl. It was evident she was more or less the female star in the group. Being a man of showboatiness and superfluousness, I felt the urge to really do a wild performance when I got up there to do my own thing.

Before you know it, Carlos and I got up for Outkast's 'Hey Ya'. I picked the song because I knew it by heart, and Carlos just wanted to do it with me, I figured why not. It's not like he's going to show me up at this song. And he didn't. My timing, pronunciation, flare, and mastery of the random noises in the song, were all spot on. People were noticeably impressed when I didn't use the TV, especially for all the 'alrite alrite alrite alrite's.'

I was clapping, dancing, singing, and booty shaking all at once. You couldn't not feel the energy radiating from the stage. During the breakdown portion of the song, I let Carlos solog while I engaged in brief and explosive pop-lock session to entertain the crowd.

It was a huge sucess. Everyone was entertained, high fives were abound, "Hey, Nice Shades!" was said, compliments were graciously received. I now had the opportunity to mill around the bar at ease and
just wait for people to approach me and start conversation based on my performance: Meeting people is always easier after tearing the roof off a place and throwing it in their faces.

So, whilst doing my rounds and socializing, Maurice, the gay guy with dreads, comes up to me. I am a bit apprehensive cause he is noticeably wasted and am anticipating gay come ons. I try to focus my
masculinity, hoping musk will escape my pores and repel his advance; it didn't work.

He starts talking to me and tells me some extremely terrible news: "Hay Kyyyyle, you did soo good, and you look good too *winky face* *pinches my cheek* *I laugh uneasily with rising angst* that guy Jon (the one with the vest and camo pants) asked me about you. Now, I know he asked about you before and I KNOW you're straight, so I took care of that for you"

Somewhat relieved and thankful for this gesture I say "Oh, well thanks. I mean, I can handle the gay come-ons myself, but I appreciate the gesture * I notice Jon looking at us from the corner, and Maurice puts his hand on my shoulder* um, what exactly DID you tell him anyway?"

To which Maurice replies "Well, to keep him away from you I told you him you were with me"

"What do you mean WITH you" I quickly retort

"I told him I was your boyfriend!" he whispers in my ear.

I look up at him, look over at Jon, communicating nothing but the sheer confusion and disappointment on my face, and walk away fast to go take a piss.

"Just great ...", I mutter to myself as peeing. "I hope to god that GI Gay does not spread this cancer of a lie to the entire bar - that would really make my upcoming performances of George Michael's 'Faith' look really
REALLY bad"

Recomposing myself and making sure that I don't so much as walk or look anything less than heterosexual, I strut out of the men's room, and I'm looking for that karaoke star woman, the one with the voice and strange clothing. I must associate myself with the opposite sex as soon as possible.

Of course, I get waylaid. By another gay man. Wonderful. This man is your bald, black, small framed type who wears a scarf and turtleneck indoorsl that's even more ridiculous than my Aviators. He didn't even have to speak a word for me to know he way gay - the only thing I didn't know is what the hell he was going to say to me.

Standing up really straight and making sure I talk deeper than usual, I greet him. He introduces himself and gets right to the point. "Are you single?". Thinking about what Maurice said and how this man was gay I automatically say "No!", then, thinking about how that may imply me as gay if he heard what Maurice said I say "I mean, yes!" realizing how I just blatanly contradicted myself and made no sense at all, I
tried to think of something to say to make sense of it all and I stammered "I'm straight!"

This overly sophisticated Seal look alike (minus horrible face damage) gives me a puzzled look and says: "No, I get it. You're not with Maurice and he just said that to keep others away from you?". And I'm like "Exactly". He asks if I mind that he set the story straight for
everyone else and I say "for the love of God, please do". He left me, and that was the end of my gay encounters for the night. Except when I was hanging our with my group of friends later and Maurice tried to play fight with me, pinched my nipple, so I played back and punched him
in the chest. "Owwww, you play rough" he said. "Oh sorry, I don't know my own strenght. Ya know, I once accidentally broke my cat's leg by playing with it." Suffice to say, he stopped touching me.

Thinking that this night could only get better, it did. I noticed Emily, that's the name of the pretty girl with the nice voice, looking at me as she walked by. I smiled huge and waved. She came over and talk ensued. The talk was good. Much overt flirting involved. She said that my look with the aviators reminded me of the little guy from Weekend at Bernie's. I said that Bernie is awesome - I hope to be able to dance like that when I'm dead, too. She like the sarcasm and humor. We sit and chat some more, and then, wait, our group gets called up again.

Jukebox Hero by Foreigner. I had stars in my eyes. I knew it was a group song, but I held tight onto one of those mics. I rocked out like a madman with one guitar. Just one. I wailed and roared and banged my head. Threw up the universal sign of "Rock and Roll!" and lashed my
tongue at the crowd, upstaging all of my friends, I couldn't help it - it's just what I do.

Once again, rounds of applause and praise. Emily tells me that I have a good voice and was on pitch really well despite being somewhat drunk. I told her likewise, looked at her chest, and when I noticed she caught me, I said that I liked her shirt, especially the area I was just
looking at. I laugh a bit - luckily for me she thought it was funny, too.

It was getting late at this point and I checked my phone. She noticed me do this and says "Oh, do you have to go home? C'mon, be a man!" Such sarcasm! I think, quick-wittedly, I reply "No, no, just checking to
make sure I didn't miss any calls from my harem of ladies." We chuckle.

It's at this point that things start to get a bit blurry. I remember my friend Sarah coming over at one point when I was with Emily, and she whispered in my ear "You hit that shit!" which made me break out in laughter. Soon afterwards, I remember Emily grabbing me by the face
and attacking me with her mouth and tongue. She then bought some Jager shots for us. A woman buying me shots? This woman is clearly trying to get me drunk. Amazing.

Her friends stop by to say they are leaving and going home. I thought of getting her number before she left with them, but decided it wouldn't be worth it cause I was leaving soon. Low and behold, she tells her friends that she'll be leaving with me. Well, this was news.
They walk off and she looks at me and says "you have a car right?" and I say "No, I'm pretty sure I jogged here - but I DO carry an extra pair of running shoes for occasions like this."

So we leave Jaberwocky, but she has to stop at the store to get cigarettes. Gross - but whatever. She also says she needs to find a crossword puzzle. The ones in the aisle won't do, they are old. She needs a new print. Weird - but whatever.

We talk for a bit on the way back to my car and a bit more after we get there as she finishes her smoke. I tell her, among other things, that I'm leaving soon to Florida. She says she's leaving at around the same
time to go back home to Texas. Huh - what a coincidence.

Now, I'm quite buzzed, but not enough to inhibit my driving, not in this case anyway. So we went back to her place. Coincidentally, her roomate was gone with his fiance. I notice empty beer bottles and coloring books all over the coffee table in the living room. She says that's because the other night was Beer and coloring books night. I look at the work and say "this is dissapointing, I expected coloring OUT of the lines and colors that make no sense. This is completely perfect."

It's around this time that she gets more drinks and we are watching Futurama or something. I start to forget things around here. There was some intense making out, but after that, I don't quite remember. What I DO remember is waking up around 4 am in my underwear alone on the couch. I look around at the pile of clothes scattered on the floor. I think to myself "Well, this is interesting..." then look at the time and
think "...wonderful, I need to get the HELL out of here."

I wonder if we had sex, cause if we did, I didn't remember it. I don't see any condom wrappers around me, but, I'm pretty sure we didn't cause I know for a
fact that I do not perform well, if at all, when wasted.

As I start getting dressed I hear some really awkward and out of tune piano music upstairs and I hear her singing. I think "that is a terrible song, it's so annoying - where are my pants?"

I'm about to leave, but I didn't want her to know. I thought about whether or not I should just leave unbeknownst to her, or leave my number in a suave manner somewhere she would find it. I thought that
would be major style points. So I wrote my number in crayon on the coloring book and threw it on the couch.

As I start to walk out she comes downstairs and apprehends me. I act as if I just got up and said "I reallly should go so I can sleep ... on
a bed ... and where there is heat" She laughs and says she forgot to put the heat on.

Realizing that I'm about to leave, but with my number still on the couch, I hesitate. That is no longer mysterious or stylish if she sees me leave and then finds it. Actually, it's pretty sketchy now. So I act like I left something in the living room and go back there and sift through things as if I'm looking for
something and, while doing so, close the coloring book and toss it somewhere.

I make some idle chat in the meantime to keep her occupied: "I heard you singing upstairs ... what exactly where you singing along to? I didn't recognize the song". She says "Oh, I was playing it myself." Well, that explains it.

Saying I have my stuff, we say our goodbyes and start talking about whether or not it's be awkward if we hung out again before we left. I say "I don't think it's normal for people to hang out after they hook up - or whatever variation of hooking up we engaged in. What do you think?" she says "Well, I don't know either. I've never actually just brought someone home like this - um, so I don't know. It might be awkward?"

And I say "Yea, you're probably right..." So I start to walk out, and then she tells me to wait, then hands me her number written with crayon. I then ask her to hand me the crayon she wrote it with "Carnation Pink", I say. "Ah, how fitting". She giggles.

"Well, maybe I'll give you call - if you want to hang out we can, I probably won't mind - and seeing as how we are both leaving around the same time, what's the big deal, right? " to which she says, hypothetically and sarcastically, "what if I DON'T want to hang out.", to which I reply with a wry smirk "Then just tell me to fuck off."

She obviously liked the aloof and confident way I handled myself, because she once again treated my face like a lollipop, and then I walked off. I went home. Set my clock for 9 am, and told myself I would tell people at work I had car problems if they ask me anything.

Right now, I am still pretty much jaded from the entire thing. To be honest, it was kinda weird, but kinda cool. I've never had a one-night stand, and probly still didn't, but the whole concept and idea was the
same. I did it for the sake of seeing what it was like. At the very least, it was fun for me to practice my charm and exercise my wit.