anthem

Morgan and I are spending a Friday night at our favorite karaoke bar in Culver City.  This is the kind of place where you can show up wearing a cocktail dress or pajama pants, and you'll blend in either way.  Tonight, we're in jeans and ponytails, sloughing off the stress of another long week.

We're just complaining about the song selections this evening -- everyone seems to want to sing depressing ballads, and we're not in the mood to cry into our cups -- when the heroine of the night stands to take the mic.  She's a girl about our age, and she's going to do Goodbye Earl, by the Dixie Chicks.

We instantly appoint ourselves her unofficial backup singers.  We wave our glasses and, from our table, join in the chorus:

Goodbye, Earl!

Those black-eyed peas?

They tasted all right to me, Earl.

You feelin' weak?

Why don't you lay down and sleeeeeep, Earl.

Ain't it dark?

Wrapped up in that taaaaarrp, Earl....

Adam and a couple of his buddies are there, too.  They stare at us, then start edging away uneasily.

Concern written all over his face, Adam's friend asks, "Why does every girl know every word to that song?"