The Awesomeness of Applebees
It’s not often you get to live and experience a cliche, but Tony, Gary, Tracy and I got to last night.
Tony is in town this week, a rarity with his work schedule these days (months?). So, after a little hang, Tracy, Tony and I head Applebees for a late dinner. We walk in and immediately realize the horror of the situation. No, not that we actually walked into an Applebees… but we walked in on Karaoke night.
They tried to seat us near the speakers. I kindly asked to be seated as far away from the speakers as possible. For 10 minutes, no one is singing. So we think we’ve maybe dodged a bullet. Then it is announced that “John” is singing. John is Asian. John has a WONDERFUL pompadour of a hair-do. John sounds like a retarded drowned cat being blended on “puree”. And, to top it all off, John is GOING FOR IT! He’s shooting for the high notes, he’s got big arm gestures to let you know he’s emoting his heart out. It was an absolute, “Oh my god, this can’t actually be real?” moment. Gary called and we immediately told him he had to get to Applebees. He joined and witnessed the horror.
To top it all off, he’s singing female love ballads from the 80’s. He went up at least 6 times while we were there. Including CRAZY FOR YOU. Which, no lie, became “CLAZY FOR YOU”. And god-forbid there was a high, emotional note because he’d try to hit it. God bless his little heart, he’d try to hit. And fail. Oh my how he failed. I saw the bartenders looking very worried that their glasses were going to shatter into a million pieces.
Tracy was our savior. At the end of her night… and the end of her 3rd Bombay and Tonic, she grabbed the mic and belted out Pat Benetar’s INVINCIBLE. Then she dropped the mic, shouted “You’ve been served!” and we all walked out.
At least that’s what we wanted to happen. Instead Tracy finished the song and insisted we stay long enough for her to finish her half-drunk Bombay and Tonic.