World's Best Singer

So, before the upsettingness of the burglary on Wednesday night, I discovered something magical.

People, I have a spectacular singing voice.

Now, I have always made fun of my singing voice. "Oh, I have the voice of an angel!", I will laughingly say. And I will be joking. Because in my head, I always had the following equation all mapped out: Alice + singing = a sound so bad it makes people cry.

This is not to say that I don't belt out the occasional (and by "occasional", I mean "frequent") number in the privacy of my own home, or my own car. Clearly, I do this. But not ever when anyone can hear me.

See, I had a friend who was an excellent singer and she would always wince whenever I tried to sing something that was stuck in my head. That, added to my own singing insecurities, meant that I didn't ever sing in public. Ever.

But last Wednesday, I ended up at a bar that had a karaoke night on. We'd just sat down with our first bottle of wine, when the 15,000 long song list was thrown down at our table.

"Karaoke! As if!", we scoffed.

Then we cracked open the second bottle of wine. And we peeked inside the song list. The two guys at the table beside us noticed us looking and asked if we were going to sing.

"Us? As if!", we scoffed again.

Then we cracked open the third bottle of wine. No one was singing, so the karaoke organizer type guy was going around to all the tables trying to coerce people to sing.

Karaoke organizer type guy (KOTG): You guys should sing. I bet you're great. Come on, it'll be fun!

Us: Thank you, no.

KOTG: What if I give you a song that's really easy to sing?

Us: Hmmm. Like what?

KOTG: Sounds of the Underground by Girls Aloud?

Us: Um, no.

KOTG: Like a Prayer by Madonna?

Us: Oooooh .... what the hell. Okay.

So, he announces us. And the three of us make our way to the microphones and sing Like A Prayer. And rather than the sneery "nice job ... not" type applause that a shoddy karaoke performance can elicit, we got real applause.

When we got back to the table, the guys at the next table were cheering for us. Apparently, we were awesome. And were the world's fastest karaoke converts.

Our next song (because you knew there was going to be a next song, didn't you?) was Your Song by Elton John. Now, rather than the regular version, we ended up singing the version from Moulin Rouge. This was a mistake. A big mistake. One that I confess was my fault. We were shamed, and needed to make a dramatic comeback.

Clearly, the way to do that was Papa Don't Preach by Madonna, which was once again awesome. We were back on top, baby!

By then, we were good friends with the guys at the next table. Our grand finale? A five person strong version of Sweet Child Of Mine by Guns N' Roses, which was quite the dance floor filler.

I now love karaoke. Love it!

And I no longer have to be shamed by my singing voice, which is also nice.