them, I don’t want to talk to them for weeks. And it makes me feel like a bad person. It makes me feel even worse, but somehow I can’t stop it.”
I got her. To some extent we all hate our married or long-term coupled friends. I think that’s why Bridget Jones decided to refer to them as the “smug marrieds,” because what else could we say about them? For the most part, save for a few couples that I don’t think ever should have gotten together (he’s gay, she’s a mensch), my married friends are quite happy. They have something I want, but maybe I should have just been happy that what I wanted was out there and possible instead of feeling awful when one of my friends’ husbands stroked his wife’s back or texted her something funny, just because he happened to be thinking about her during our brunch date on a Saturday.
Once everyone had their turn and felt properly unburdened of what had turned into a multitude of issues, the room was decidedly blue. Admitting what is wrong with you is not a fun game and while LAA wasn’t supposed to be a bed of roses, we were supposed to leave feeling better about ourselves. It was also hard to accept that what we were lonely for was actually someone we hadn’t met yet. We didn’t so much miss all the jerks we were leaving behind as we were terrified of not finding the one that was right for us.
The camp counselor in me (TRUTH: I only survived one summer of camp counseloring due to my aversion to bugs, an extreme allergy to poison ivy, and Annie not being invited back after canoeing to the boys’ side of camp to buy some bootleg tequila) came out.
“This is a good thing, ladies,” I blurted out with a tad too much contrived enthusiasm. “We don’t have to feel like shit because of what we’ve done in the past. The point of this exercise is to own our faults and try not to repeat them. I have an idea if everyone can stay just a little bit longer.”
Everyone agreed they had nowhere better to be on a Sunday night. I left them to their devices while I scoured the garage for Eleanor’s personal guilty pleasure—hoping that no one had moved it since the funeral.
It ended up being pretty easy to find. Covered by a sheet in the far back corner of the car port was a karaoke machine complete with two microphones. It took me only a few minutes to set it up on the television in the basement, thanks to Eleanor’s detailed cursive instructions left for her nurses on how to make the thing work. I remembered that when she was on her last legs, she demanded to karaoke with her support staff on Sunday nights, singing mainly show tune staples. Tito, Eleanor always said, did a wonderful baritone “Surrey with the Fringe on Top.”
My grandmother was partial to Pat Benatar.
I called everyone to the basement.
“Here’s what we’re going to do. Everyone pick a song that you think represents your worst moral failing and sing it.”
There was a groan, but I decided to translate it as a groan of delight. Of course I could have been deluding myself. Maybe I was also a karaoke pusher. But if I was, I didn’t care. I couldn’t imagine how anyone wouldn’t be happier after a few rounds of karaoke.
Katrina went first, choosing Aretha Franklin’s “Respect,” since high on her list was the fact that she didn’t think she respected herself enough to search for a man who loved her for the right reasons. Stella hummed along to Sinéad O’Connor’s “Nothing Compares 2 U,” since her biggest failing, conveyed to us through a series of notes, was that she was unable to appreciate herself as much as the boyfriends she always put on a pedestal. Prithi sang “Papa Don’t Preach,” natch.
I went through the list of thousands of songs stored in the machine until I came up with the perfect song for my personal moral inventory.
I was so into “I Would Do Anything for Love” that it wasn’t until I was to hell and back about four times (who knew the abridged version of the
I got her. To some extent we all hate our married or long-term coupled friends. I think that’s why Bridget Jones decided to refer to them as the “smug marrieds,” because what else could we say about them? For the most part, save for a few couples that I don’t think ever should have gotten together (he’s gay, she’s a mensch), my married friends are quite happy. They have something I want, but maybe I should have just been happy that what I wanted was out there and possible instead of feeling awful when one of my friends’ husbands stroked his wife’s back or texted her something funny, just because he happened to be thinking about her during our brunch date on a Saturday.
Once everyone had their turn and felt properly unburdened of what had turned into a multitude of issues, the room was decidedly blue. Admitting what is wrong with you is not a fun game and while LAA wasn’t supposed to be a bed of roses, we were supposed to leave feeling better about ourselves. It was also hard to accept that what we were lonely for was actually someone we hadn’t met yet. We didn’t so much miss all the jerks we were leaving behind as we were terrified of not finding the one that was right for us.
The camp counselor in me (TRUTH: I only survived one summer of camp counseloring due to my aversion to bugs, an extreme allergy to poison ivy, and Annie not being invited back after canoeing to the boys’ side of camp to buy some bootleg tequila) came out.
“This is a good thing, ladies,” I blurted out with a tad too much contrived enthusiasm. “We don’t have to feel like shit because of what we’ve done in the past. The point of this exercise is to own our faults and try not to repeat them. I have an idea if everyone can stay just a little bit longer.”
Everyone agreed they had nowhere better to be on a Sunday night. I left them to their devices while I scoured the garage for Eleanor’s personal guilty pleasure—hoping that no one had moved it since the funeral.
It ended up being pretty easy to find. Covered by a sheet in the far back corner of the car port was a karaoke machine complete with two microphones. It took me only a few minutes to set it up on the television in the basement, thanks to Eleanor’s detailed cursive instructions left for her nurses on how to make the thing work. I remembered that when she was on her last legs, she demanded to karaoke with her support staff on Sunday nights, singing mainly show tune staples. Tito, Eleanor always said, did a wonderful baritone “Surrey with the Fringe on Top.”
My grandmother was partial to Pat Benatar.
I called everyone to the basement.
“Here’s what we’re going to do. Everyone pick a song that you think represents your worst moral failing and sing it.”
There was a groan, but I decided to translate it as a groan of delight. Of course I could have been deluding myself. Maybe I was also a karaoke pusher. But if I was, I didn’t care. I couldn’t imagine how anyone wouldn’t be happier after a few rounds of karaoke.
Katrina went first, choosing Aretha Franklin’s “Respect,” since high on her list was the fact that she didn’t think she respected herself enough to search for a man who loved her for the right reasons. Stella hummed along to Sinéad O’Connor’s “Nothing Compares 2 U,” since her biggest failing, conveyed to us through a series of notes, was that she was unable to appreciate herself as much as the boyfriends she always put on a pedestal. Prithi sang “Papa Don’t Preach,” natch.
I went through the list of thousands of songs stored in the machine until I came up with the perfect song for my personal moral inventory.
I was so into “I Would Do Anything for Love” that it wasn’t until I was to hell and back about four times (who knew the abridged version of the
Similar Books
