the last time I did karaoke

Tonight we had a ward activity. It was a potluck followed by dessert and karaoke. It brought back memories of the last (and only) time I tried karaoke.

That was also a ward activity. My sister Melissa and I were teenagers, but I can't remember how old we were. We are pretty decent singers, but I wasn't really planning on singing that evening--I wasn't a big fan of being silly in public, I think, although if you got me in the right mood I could be quite silly, much to Melissa's embarrassment.

Well, somebody handed us the list of songs, and we looked through, curious to see which ones were even an option. It seemed like most of the songs people were singing were country songs, and we pretty much hated country music (I've since been converted somewhat--please don't disown me, Melissa). So we wanted to hear people sing some better songs. We were particularly partial to oldies.

Then we noticed that the song "You Are So Beautiful" was on the list. And one of us (I think it was me, but I'm not really sure) thought it would be really cool if we were to get up and sing the song and dedicate it to our mom. We figured it would make her feel good.

So we went up to the stage and waited in line and then told whoever was in charge that we wanted to sing "You Are So Beautiful." At the microphone we announced that we were dedicating our performance to our mom.

Like I said, we were pretty decent singers. We weren't expecting to sound like we were tone deaf. We were good at singing the right pitch and getting the intervals right.

But we couldn't, for the life of us, figure out what the right pitch was. The TV screen was flashing the words we were supposed to sing, but the accompaniment was different enough from the melody that I think we barely recognized it. So we didn't even sing the first couple of lines. Then I lamely leaned forward into the microphone and just said the words "You are so beautiful" in the right rhythm, but that sounded dumb. But it was karaoke, and we had to stand there and fumble through it and try to sing even though we couldn't figure out what notes we were supposed to be singing. At one point we figured it out and it sounded pretty good, but then we lost it again. That was a really long couple of minutes.

I'm not sure what our mom thought. She didn't say anything.

Later on, we got a chance to redeem ourselves. The activity was starting to end, and somebody remarked that our dad had never gotten up to sing and convinced him to choose a song. Melissa and I joined him. He chose "New York, New York." Dad has a really great singing voice. He did an awesome job. I think people asked him to do another song after that. And since Melissa and I were singing with him, we felt a little better about it all.

And that is why I do not sing karaoke. It's not just the fear of embarrassment. It's that if it's not going well, you have to keep being embarrassed until the song is over, standing all alone in front of a bunch of people. Some people don't mind that. I can't handle it.