Karaoke Queen

My dear Bestie, Arizaphale, is a paragon of virtue. She is a wonderful mother, understanding step-mum, supportive wife, great teacher and fabulous friend. She is a non-smoker and responsible drinker, active participant in her church and reliable taxi service for all and sundry.

Which is why it's so much fun to be with her when she goes on a bender.

This does not happen often. There needs to be a special combination of circumstances for there to be any chance of an "Arizaphale Behaving Badly" evening, but such was the state of affairs on Wednesday. Baby Angel in Sydney. Husband in KI. No school in the morning. Friends who know the location of a karaoke bar.

The evening started calmly enough. My Beloved cooked us a lovely meal, we discussed current events, the world financial crisis and other erudite matters and then decided to pop out for a nightcap at the local pub. No problem.

My Beloved, having had an early start on the [CENSORED] was just about to suggest heading home and popping on a movie when Arizaphale came out with the fateful words "How about we go and have a sing?"

And so we set out to the local karoke bar on the understanding that it would be one drink and one song. Famous last words.

When we arrived at the venue at something after 10pm we were the only patrons there. We ordered a drink and proceeded to browse through the 'playlist' of around 582,532 available songs. Not an easy task and one requiring the reinforcement of another round of drinks.

My Beloved got things rolling with a couple of his 'standards' and, sick of waiting for either of us to make up our minds, just picked out something for us to sing as a duet which we dutifully did. I wish I could remember what it was, but in any case we didn't make a bad job of it and it certainly got the ball rolling.

And what a roll it was!

Arizaphale with microphone in hand suddenly became a woman possessed, choosing song after song for our listening pleasure. And when she wasn't singing, she was dancing. And when not dancing ... well, it was time for another round after all and singing and dancing is thirsty work.

The venue started to fill up, providing a more extensive audience but also some competition for 'mike time'. There are certain rules of etiquette at a karoke bar - firstly, one must always clap politely at the end of a song, no matter how well or how dreadfully it has been performed. While Arizaphale did this with (sometimes) unwarranted enthusiasm, she became somewhat less able to abide by certain of the other conventions as the evening wore on.

It is, for example, poor form to run around the room giving notes to other singers on how they might improve their performance. It is also not generally acceptable to provide back-up vocals to complete strangers if not invited. This was explained gently to her by my Beloved, but at one point I thought she would have to be forcibly restrained.

In between Arizaphale's virtuoso performances, my Beloved found another few songs to add to his repertoire (and a couple not to), we girls harmonised delightfully on something that had a lot of 'La's" in it, and I managed a stirling rendition of "Toucha Toucha Touch Me", ably backed up the other two.

A fine time was being had by all. At around 1.30am, and conscious that while it might not be a school night for Arizaphale it was for me, my Beloved managed to shepherd us both out of the club and within about 3 feet of a waiting cab, but it was not to be. As if by magic, Arizaphale disappeared back inside and the next thing we heard was her dulcet tones belting out "Mustang Sally".

At this point I became resigned to hanging in there for the duration, and ordered another round... She was just having too much of a good time to drag away, and after all, she doesn't get to do it often.

So it was with very bleary eyes that I hauled myself to work the next day after what can only be described as a short nap. Just the day to catch up with my filing.

And Arizaphale? Her text message next day said it all. "Thanx 4 a gr8 nite, but do not take me there ever again!!!:-)". Until next time ...