Alright, I'm going to try and redeem myself from my description of Jen's sweat stains at her bachelor auction. Chances are good that this post will only put me further in the doghouse in that regard though...
First, I have to tell you about a "girls night" a couple of months ago where I stayed over in Phoenix one Friday night and, after dinner, we went to a karaoke bar in Scottsdale. Jen double-dog dared me to play the bongos that were on the stage at the bar. Double-dog dare? Oh....you shouldn't have gone there Jen... I, of course, accepted the challenge but simple playing the bongos was not enough. Very poor and amateurish bongo playing is quite strenuous and I needed to stretch beforehand. (I've also found that stretching before a crowd raises anticipation regarding skill level and since I had none I really had nothing to lose.) So, I ran up on the stage and started an extended and totally unnecessary series of stretches.
I then enthusiastically and very poorly played the bongos.
Hopefully my enthusiasm made up for my lack of skill. Of course, the double-dog dare was ricocheted off me and onto Jen so she also had to play the bongos.
Now, Jen is a MASTER at karaoke and she has a fantastic voice. I, on the other hand, have absolutely no voice (not that it ever stops me from singing). So, we needed to find a song that would fit both of our skill levels (Jen = high, me = none). Jen knew the perfect song right away, "Push It" by Salt and Pepper (Peppa?). After she was handed the microphone, Jen turned from this poised television news reporter to a gang-sign flashin' pimpin rap singer. I should have known this was going to happen from the first "YO YO YO YO!" that came belting out of her mouth. Jen was all over the stage singing and stomping back and forth to the song and I was behind her singing the chorus of "Push It Real Good" and doing robot dance moves and basically jumping up and down and looking like a fool. Jen was awesome though and everyone bowed to and acknowledged her excellence. I felt like a movie star's best friend.
Although Jen has been a news reporter in Washington State (I think) and Texas, she is actually from Phoenix so working here is a sort of homecoming for her. Her high school alma mater thought so too so that asked her to be the official grand marshall of their homecoming parade. My high school still has a homecoming parade through out little town of Herndon on a Saturday morning in October (usually) with the game at noon. The whole community gets involved and all those little dance schools with little girls in tutus and little cub scout troops proudly strut down the middle of our town. Each class makes a float as well adn I have memories of our junior class making a float involving the Pink Panther and a lot of pink tissue paper that was seriously horrible. I was surprised and really pleased to find that a suburb of "big, crowded" Phoenix has the same tradition and that they picked my very worthy friend to be the focus of their worship. Jen's bosses didn't think it was so great though and they made her do a story on the parade before they would let her off of work. Of course, that meant that Jen had to do interviews all morning and prepare the story and then get footage of the parade (with her in it) and run it down to the TV station to make the 5 pm news. It was sort of like they were setting her up to fail. Jen, of course, did not fail at all and she finished the story and even made it to the homecoming banquet that evening. Ha! Take that you local NBC news freaks.
Comments