Rollin' On The River

A few years ago, the company I worked for was celebrating their 70th anniversary. In honor of this achievement, and as the result of a logic I still don't fully understand, they were holding a company-wide "Through The Decades" karaoke contest. An e-mail went out with a suggested list of seminal songs from every decade from the '30s onward, including such hits as the lyrical masterpiece "Happy Birthday, Mr. President" by Marilyn Monroe, representing the '60s, and "When A Man Loves A Woman" by Michael Bolton, representing the '90s, which, besides being a dreadful choice to represent anything, is a cover of a song originally recorded in the '60s, but like I said — logic I don't fully understand.

Anyway, there are 2 things you must know about me before I go any further: 1) I LOVE karaoke, and 2) I will do almost anything to get out of doing real work when I'm at work. Thus, there is no question I am going to enter this contest. And as I continue to scroll through the e-mail, there is no question as to which song I will be selecting, either: right there, listed under "THE 70'S!" [and can I just briefly mention how much I hate it when people misplace that apostrophe?], the decade in which I entered into this world, is "Proud Mary" by Tina Turner. Hell to the yeah, bitches.

As I scroll further down, however, I encounter an obstacle: "Contestants must provide their own music." Dang. They specify that it doesn't have to be karaoke music, singing along to a regular CD is acceptable, but I (shamefully admit that I) don't own any Tina Turner CDs, and I sadly mention this to the rest of my department.

At this point you should probably also be made aware that "the rest of my department" consists of a bunch of little old ladies who think I'm a genius and absolutely fabulous and who are always fussing over me like mother hens and trying to set me up with their grandsons. I knew they were going to go batshit over this, but I still never expected to walk in the next day to discover 3 separate Tina Turner CDs sitting on my desk.

All systems go. >:)

I breeze through the first round. I make it through the second round without a hitch. Then — bam! — I'm in the final 3. Now, let me explain why this is more of an accomplishment than you may think: 3,000 people work for this company (granted, only like, 14 tried out), and the majority of them are black. I am a white girl. Singing TINA TURNER. And I am in the final 3. Yeah, just take a second for that to sink in...

So, the big day arrives. I am decked out in high-heeled boots and a black long-sleeved tunic-style top that almost looks like a mod-ish mini-dress, which, at the tempo change, will be dramtically whipped off to reveal my real gold-sequined, red-fringed, shimmy-friendly mini-dress underneath. My competitors are not in costume. I am going to blow this thing away. Can. Not. Freakin'. WAIT!

The judges arrive and inform us that our performances will be videotaped for everyone to see and ask who wants to go first. Never hesitating to jump at the chance to make a fool of myself in public, I volunteer. We enter the conference room, and I am bewildered — during the audition process, the only people in the room with us were the 3 judges. Now, the room is full of managers and supervisors. Apparently, there was a room scheduling conflict, so we are now performing in front of this audience during the lunch break of their quality control meeting.

Awkward.

No matter, I tell myself, as I march up to the front of the room with a big smile plastered on my face. I am still going to kill this. Introduction by the judges. Music on. Go! There are smiles and some polite clapping along during the opening section. Music speeds up. There are shocked gasps at the now slightly work-innapropriate costume change. I only crack on one of the high notes. And I only trip over my own feet once while dancing. Song is over. Silence. Everyone's looking at each other, mildly alarmed, like, "Was that offensive? Should we clap?" I feel like a moron. Retreat to rear of room to watch rest of competition in cloud of sulkiness.

Thank you, Cleveland!

The next contestant is a matronly church gospel singer performing "The Greatest Love Of All" by Whitney Houston. I kid you not. No costume, no choreography. The managers love her. The final contestant is the Haitian janitor doing "Daniel" by Elton John. His accent is barely intelligible. He's not even singing the right words. This is abysmal. What the hell was I thinking? The judges thank the managers for their patience and inform us that voting will be done by intranet starting tomorrow morning and the tape will be playing on a loop in the cafeteria until voting closes. Wonderful. Can't freakin' wait.

However, by the next morning I'm getting kind of excited again. My competitive spirit takes hold — I want to win. I plan to campaign all day (another convenient excuse to not do any work). And I am dying to see this tape.

I get down to the cafeteria before they even have the VCR set up. My whole department, my brother's whole department, and his best friend's whole department are there to witness the spectacle. I'm practically jumping up and down and squealing when they hit PLAY. And then — shockingly — it's not bad! I'm not mortified at the prospect of 3,000 people possibly viewing this performance! And it's not like they had the balls to get up there themselves. So HA!

Everyone's congratulating me and saying they loved it and I looked great before slowly wandering back to their desks. I stay down there for at least another hour, enthralled. People I'm not familiar with wander in and stop by to watch. It's hard to judge their reactions.

Until...

A woman I don't know comes up and stands next to me as my part of the tape starts playing again. When it gets to the line with the note I flubbed, I wince a little. This woman turns to me and says, "I know, right? She sure can dance, but she definitely can't sing." I just stare at her, open-mouthed, for a few seconds before blurting out in shock, "You know that's me, right?" In retrospect, I really wish I had been quick-thinking enough to have played along. However, watching and listening to this woman trip all over herself to apologize and explain how that's not what she meant to say and that I really am a good dancer was well worth the insult.

Later on, I'm riding the elevator back up to my department with two girls I've never met. Starting my campaign, I ask them, "So, did you vote yet?" One girl replies, "Yeah, we voted for the girl in the red dress!" Again, shock. How do these people not recognize me? It's not like I was wearing a mask! "I'm the girl in the red dress!" I tell them. "Thanks so much!"

"No way! Really? You kicked ass! Good luck!"

Master of disguise, I am.

I find out later in the day that the gospel singer works in a department of about 60 people. I work in one of about 12. I enlist everyone I know, from supervisors to stock boys, to spread the word and help me out. My brother tells me one of his co-workers just sent an e-mail to all the outside adjusters telling them to vote for me, even though they don't work in the building and haven't even seen the tape. One of my friends was letting the kids from the mailrom use his computer to vote since they didn't have their own workstations. One of the little old ladies tells me her son's department is voting for me because I "had the best cleavage." (Don't judge me — I'll take it where I can get it!) Another little old lady, who was about 90 and never worked on a computer, had our supervisor teach her how to log in just so she could vote for me. I'm actually getting teary.

I spend the rest of the day repeatedly refreshing the voting page and monitoring my progress. It's a close race. At several points, I'm ahead of the competition. At one point, I'm ahead by a wide margin. I hear cheering going on outside my cubicle. By the end of the day, the lead has dwindled, and before I leave for the day I've fallen behind. I arrive the next morning to discover I have lost by about 30 votes to the gospel singer.

To paraphrase the South Park guys: "Whatever bad things people have gone through can't compare to the pain of losing to Whitney Houston."

But then, to quote that masterpiece of cinema, Bring It On: "Second place, HELL YEAH!"