"Everybody Needs a Second Chance"

From the moment it arrived in my house, it beckoned me.

Perhaps it was because of the disappointing experiences long ago, or my love of song, or my deep desire to take Kelly Clarkson's vocal chords and transplant them into my own...

All that I know is, it took every fiber of my being to not Karaoke on my sister-in-law's machine for my son's 8th birthday.

I smiled and listened as my son attempted his favorite guitar song, Smoke on the Water. My sister-in-law gave Big and Rich's Ride a Cowboy a whirl. (I am quite certain she'd never thought about the meaning to the words of that song beforehand.)

And, then she left...telling us she'd leave it with us for a few weeks after seeing my daughter's enthusiastic screaming into the microphone with the echo machine on. For some reason, everyone in the room was in tears laughing as my daughter rolled on the floor squealing in a way that sounded like a beached whale bellowing for help or some sort of dolphin-dialect.

Me, I didn't find it funny...I just saw the writing on the wall.

She is going to be as tone-deaf as me...the singing wannabe, too afraid to Karaoke.

It isn't like I haven't tried before---years ago at a moms' group retreat, I jumped in with a God-awful rendition of Build Me Up Buttercup, only to try and redeem myself with It's Raining Men. Thankfully, both were with a partner. Not so thankfully, we both have low voices which seemed to be about a key off of one another. No amount of wine that evening could have covered our voices destroying those two perfectly wonderful songs.

And, since then, I have contained myself to car singing or the occasionally iPod vocals when no one is around, and I've never gone near a Karaoke night again.

Until yesterday...when I could take it no more.

The box sat there with all of these great 70s and 80s hits just waiting for me. Begging me to come and try them out. Hit me with Your Best Shot, Free Ride, I Love Rock-N-Roll, all of them! It was just too much, I tell you!

So, last night, after dinner, I could wait no longer. And, I pounced.

I pushed away from my dinner chair and walked directly to the machine while my family watched in bewilderment. After all, I had shown no interest in the machine since we got it. I put in the CD and let the music take me away.

After a rather deep version of The Devil Went Down to Georgia where I'd only missed one word, I put the microphone down feeling triumphant--like a huge weight had been taken off my shoulders. I looked around at my family. My son sat wide-eyed with his mouth open. Then, I looked to my spouse for approval.

"It was...certainly, um...low...kind of monotoned even..." He said with a strange and traumatic look on his face.

Rejection. Again. Sigh.

But, in my failure, a new generation of Karaoke enthusiasts was born. My son has mastered the words to Everybody's Workin' for the Weekend, Van Halen's Jump, and is working on The Devil now too. He loves the music. And, surprisingly, this little box is helping his reading too as he has to read quickly to keep up.

And my daughter? She still sounds like a dying whale. Oh well, at least there is hope for one of us...