Karaoke.

I love karaoke. It is the best night out. If you don't like karaoke you must be from one of those sheltered sects that don't allow any fun or happiness. No chocolate, no internet, no karaoke. Only God and butter churns.

The Japanese have such great ideas. They invented that baby onesie with mop heads on the knees and hand pads so your baby can sweep the floor while it's crawling around. Efficient, man. It's the name of the game. And how to you get drunk people drunker as quick as possible? Make them listen to drunk people singing. It's lucrative. Japan's economy can shatter to pieces like sugar glass, but they'll always have karaoke and people buying more and more alcohol, so they'll always recover the quickest. We should make karaoke a vital part of the recession recovery plan.

So every few weeks I actually run the karaoke DJ equipment at my friend L's mother's bar in Baltimore. It's really great. For one thing, I now get to call myself a DJ, which is the one thing I never, ever thought I'd be able to call myself. DJs are (to my white girl sensibilities) this entire counterculture of people wearing backwards hats and wifebeaters with enormous headphones only covering one ear and boxes and boxes of records from obscure nordic electronica bands under their turntables. I sit behind a computer and drag tracks like "I've got you under my skin" into Winamp.

Karaoke starts at 9 and at first if no one comes in I get to line up a playlist, which at first was really daunting but now it's great because I'm the only one controlling it (unlike a damn jukebox - you cannot trust people's taste anymore) so I pick all songs that I want to listen to, and sit there. Sometimes, the bartender brings me crab balls. On Saturday I had to make a playlist because there was only a bunch of kids eating dinner with their parents, so started picking songs and only realized halfway through a huge playlist that most of them were....lady singers! I unconsciously picked ladies before men! Success. I had to throw a few dudes in there, but I made them classics, like Paul Simon and Billy Joel and Elton John.

And since there were kids, I put a christmas carol in. Bad move: they ran over to me and asked to sing it, and then for 30 minutes a 9 year old boy and a 13 year old girl sang every goddamn christmas song I had. If there is anything worse than an old man drunk on nattybo singing My Way by Frank Sinatra, it's a bunch of kids with chicken wing breath singing rudolph the red nosed reindeer.

While all these carols were going on there was a family in the back eating quietly - a dad who got up to sing a Garth Brooks song, a mom with a lot of piercings, and a little, little boy who couldn't have been 2 yet, or maybe was just barely 2. He was definitely walking, because as soon as the christmas carol kids left he stood up on his chair all the way across the bar and started jabbering at me with his hands outstretched. There were words in there, but it was mostly "abasa! abasaba!" Then he got down on his chair and ran at top toddler speed, came behind by desk, and reached his hands out. I held out the mike - "Do you want this, buddy?" "AAAAAAH SING ABASABA!" and he snatched it, stood out where the singers stand, stared at the blank TV screen, and started singing into the microphone. Biggest smile.

His mom came up and asked if I had Take me out to the Ballgame, which I did -I put it on, the dad pulled the kid up into his lap and helped him hold the mike, and the kid sang every word, loud as hell, into that heavy microphone. "TA! ME OU TO A BAAAA GAAAAA, TA! ME OU TO A CRAAAAAAA, BUY ME A PEE NUH AA CRAAAAAKA JAH, AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH NEVA CUH BAH..." I about died. At the one! two! three strikes you're out! part, he threw his fingers up and counted and started pumping his fist in the air. His parents were singing, the bartender was singing, I was singing and clapping, it was awesome.

There are two doors to the bar and the family was on their way out the door farther from my table when the little kid broke free and ran back to me and began falling all over himself with thanks. "Thank you! sing it thank you! thank you sing it, ball game, thank you! sing it good!" And I told him what a wonderful job he did, and I was so happy to meet him. And then this two year old kid picked up my hand and kissed it, and ran back to his parents and left.

After that, you can pretty much handle anything that comes your way. I had planned to write about how insane the rest of the night was, about how one particularly wasted guy wouldn't answer to anything but his name backward, so when I'd call him up on the mike he would ignore me -

Jacky: ok, Timmy! Timmy, come on up. Hey, Timmy!...Ok, YMMIT.
Ymmit: Oh, is it my turn?
Jacky: Yeah, Ymmit.
Ymmit: I want to sing American Pie.

Then there was the guy who requested My Way by Frank Sinatra, but someone had already sang it earlier in the night, and he said "go ahead and put it on anyways. I'll sing it the right way." And then the guy who wanted to sing John and Yoko's War Is Over (So This is Christmas), and thank god I didn't have it.

But none of that seems to matter much after a baby kisses your hand after singing Take me out to the Ballgame.