Boo. [hoo.]

Kerry and Amy and I met at a very respectable restaurant to commiserate on Amy's week of when-it-rains-it-pours and to celebrate my first published book design. We were in good spirits. The snacks were fine; the martinis, however, had no snap; and a dj appeared and proceeded to ratchet up the volume.

Amy: Do you believe this?

Me: What's going on?

Barkeep: It's karaoke night.

Kerry: Karaoke. You're kidding. Since when does this place do karaoke?

Me: [nearly shouting] I can't hear myself think.

Amy: [trying to be heard over the feedback... yes, you read that right... feedback from a dj rig] What?

Manager: [taps me on the shoulder, nearly shouting] I understand that you're not happy with the sound.

Me: [we are all shouting now] What? This is really unpleasant.

Manager: [shouting... and failing to see the irony here] What?!

Me: I know a 10-piece funk band that doesn't play this loud.

Manager: What? What did you say? I'm sorry you're not enjoying our karaoke night.

Me: [with a sweeping gesture to the array of scowling patrons in the joint] I'm not asking you to turn down but you might want to ask the other people here how they feel. We're leaving.

Manager: What?

Addendum: As we started to leave we noticed that there was an increasing ring of very restless non-descript 20-something guys surrounding the dj. They were sort of shifting from foot to foot and becoming more lathered. It was fetishistic in the creepiest suburban homoerotic slasher film sort of way. Or maybe it's just because it was Halloween.