I can't believe I did it. My 100th post on my three-month anniversary (and I didn't plan that) and I'm still blogging. I have to thank the person who kicked me into doing this, SunKingpoet. He helped set up the coding, made the first comment on my first post, and has helped me whenever I asked for it. Thanks Bub, I love ya. I also want to thank each and everyone of you (I'd list them out, but this post is going on 900 words as it is) for the clicks, and the emails, the comments the compliments when stuff was good, and the truth when it was not so good. You've been here through a tough summer with me. You've let me share my thoughts and have accepted me for them, supported me with them, and helped me stand by them.

Newcomers and regulars, (does one have regulars for three months? Let me know in comments!) from the bottom of my heart, thanks for being here for me.

And now for the 100th post.

Do you want to know how much I love you? Well, for my 100^th post, I love you so much that I’m going to use this post for telling y’all the story you’ve been waiting for. How I stopped a noisy, crowded restaurant cold in its tracks. Hey, I love you so much that if you hadn’t read the other three of my postings, here is the first post, the second post, and the third post regarding my family reunion in Memphis in July, 2006.

After I left the Peabody hotel, I went back to the hotel room where everyone was either mingling around in the halls or sitting in the room itself. As the day wore on, the people separated into different groups to do their own thing. I didn’t do much (yup, y’all know how broke I was—another story in the “Family Reunion” saga is how I got there in the first place) but hang around the hotel. Later, I had come to the room and looked in the fridge to see if there was anything to drink. I found some coolers that I had not tasted. I took one and started drinking. Now mind you, I have a sporadic alcoholic tolerance level. If I hadn’t had much to drink lately, my tolerance is low. On the other hand, if I’ve been drinking a lot, my tolerance was high.

Guess what? I had not had much to drink in a while, so the cooler had me “mellow.” I tried to find some way of having some fun with all of the other people in the room who were not doing anything, and, after failing, I went downstairs. I mulled around with the other people in the lobby then, after that thrill was gone, decided to go into the TGI Friday’s bar that was linked to the hotel. I found one of my cousins, her husband and an uncle of hers (which was probably a cousin of mine) at a table. I sat with them, all abuzz. I cajoled with their waitress and we talked. They obviously noticed that I had been drinking because my demeanor had changed from perky and upbeat throughout the day (they never noticed anything that happened between my father and me; not many people noticed) and my slightly slurred, relaxed disposition that was seated before them.

We talked for a long time as they waited for their food to arrive. Yes, I forgot their names, but the husband offered me some of his wings. I ate a couple and, between the food and the repartee between the waitress and me, the drunken scale went from tired to nervy (as in bold and lampshade-wearing, dancing-on-the-tables). I was happier. Life was what it was and I’m just a bed bug in it.

At this particular TGI Friday’s, when there is a birthday, the waitress that served them has to sing “Happy Birthday” alone, yet loud enough to be heard. The waitress that had served my cousins had to do this for a table that was about ten or fifteen feet away from our table. There were two couples, and many more around them in our own separate gatherings, who had to suffer this poor woman’s excuse of singing that song. She hit three or four keys in the singing of it and faltered at the end. Then the thought hit me. I can sing that waaaay better than she can.

So I did.

I went to the table with wrongdoing on my face. I distinctly remember hearing my female cousin make some verbal notion of an “uh oh” or an “oh boy” as I walked to the table.

“I saw that there was someone who had a birthday here and I just wanted to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to them. Who’s birthday is it?”

“Mine,” one of the women said.

“What is your name?” After she told me her name is Hope, I made a series of preparatory posturings: I cleared my throat, patted my chest, arched my shoulders erect, took a few deep, laborious breaths. After one inhalation, I sang “Happy Birthday.”

No big deal, right? Let me tell you something. The best way I can describe how I sing this is for you midlife people and maybe younger is the following: remember Edith Bunker from “All in the Family?” Remember how she sang the line, “and you know where you were then”? Okay. Picture Edith Bunker really drunk as she sung “Happy Birthday.”

I make her sound like Celine Dion.

I’ve had people run across parking lots, I’ve had people cringe, I’ve had people cower, and I’ve had people pale at my singing “Happy Birthday.” It takes only one time to hear how I sing it to understand why people shriek, “NOOOOOOO!!!” when I ask them if they want me to sing that celebratory song. And I sang it so loudly that the restaurant hushed. I mean I didn’t even hear the kitchen stirring. We’re talking about a restaurant that has to be a solid fifty feet long. After someone picked up the pin that dropped (everyone heard it, it was so quiet), I got a resounding ovation from the whole restaurant.

I told everyone to tip their waitresses as I returned to the table.

Labels: Humor, My Writing, Prose