The dangers of karaoke

Challenge 2: Karaoke

Mia 'thriving not shining'

As a child I was regaled with stories of how my mother used to steal microphones at social events and belt out Mustang Sally. She was a self-proclaimed and admittedly awful karaoke queen and now every time I hear that song a shiver creeps down my spine. On the weekend I unfortunately discovered that I am in fact my mother's daughter, a filthy microphone hog and I have the scars to prove it.

It had been a running joke that my friend Max and I would one day do karaoke so, as my time in London is rapidly coming to an end we decided there's no time like the present. Despite having taken private singing lessons, being in the school choir from the age of 9 and studying music up until Year 11, the notion of standing in front of people and singing utterly petrifies me. I've always wondered if I'm like one of those poor souls on X Factor who truly believes they can sing but really sound like a cat being strangled. As a result I desired, nay needed, a little dutch courage to get me through the two hour session that we had booked.

As I was running late, there was a quick pre-drinking session at a mate's place, which proved enough to take the edge off. After some vodka the notion of yelling into a mic with a group of friends seemed a tiny bit less daunting, until someone asked, 'Didn't you used to sing at school?' Shit. Had I really mentioned that? Luckily the focus was taken swiftly off my choir girl days when my friend Mia started informing strangers on the train that we were headed to Dime Bar for a spot of karaoke and began and in-depth discussion about which songs she would be choosing. She was adamant that while she may not shine that evening, she would indeed thrive.

And thrive she did. As soon as we were escorted into our little karaoke dungeon, which resembled a sauna with a large screen on the wall, more drinks were ordered and Mia was onto that microphone faster than Max could request Gangnam Style (which he did sing in perfect Korean might I add). We were dancing on couches, the vodka cranberries were going down nicely and after I felt sufficiently tipsy I decided it was time. I had already added one of my favourite shower songs Hit Me With Your Best Shot to the playlist, so when it came on I was ready. Now, what my friends don't know is that I wasn't going to leave this monumental moment up to chance; I had actually had a quick run through of the song using the lyrics off youtube a few nights before. Spot the loser. What I hadn't banked on was that with a little vodka in my system, what I'd anticipated would be simply trying to stay in tune became a full blown performance. I was a woman possessed! There were Mariah Carey hands, there was vibrato, I didn't care what anyone else thought because all of a sudden I was a diva. Another girl who I'd only met once before decided to join in with me and it turned out she could really sing! Brilliant! Someone to duet A Whole New World from Aladdin with me!

I was obviously devastated when our time was up however, I was still overcome by the music. After exiting the booth I decided to duck off to the bathroom which was down some stairs. The combination of too much vodka, very high shoes and bouncing to my own rendition of songs from the Lion King proved too much. With the grace of a baby giraffe, I tumbled straight down the whole flight of stairs and landed by the feet of some poor unsuspecting stranger. I remember thinking at the time 'act sober' and that my hand was stinging a little but I otherwise didn't notice any damage. The following morning I awoke to discover I had scraped skin off the stop of my hand and that my legs were black and blue from the knee down. I couldn't help but laugh at the irony of coming away from singing Hit Me With Your Best Shot looking as though I'd been assaulted.

On Monday the kids had plenty of questions for me about what happened to my hand. I've learnt from my recent obsession with shows like Lie to Me and White Collar that the best lies are the ones where only part of the truth is omitted, so I told the kids that I had fallen down some stairs while wearing very big shoes. One of them told me that it was ok and she understood, after all she had fallen off the swings once. I just nodded and told her they sounded like very similar stories...