Sing for the laughter, sing for the tears

Sing with me, sing for the year
Sing for the laughter, sing for the tears
Sing with me, if it's just for today 

This birthday girl had a boyfriend, so it was a five couples/sixth wheel kind of night.  We went to some piano bar in Pioneer Square.  Most of my other piano bar memories are either from Vegas with these asshole pianists who were ostentatious tip whores, or the night I tagged along to some overcrowded one in philly with Chris' ex and a bunch of her gay friends.  It was the least I could do after he bought me "The Rules of the Game."

This piano bar wasn't bad though.  The pianos were on a stage and they had a drum set.  The music was good.  I was fairly certain that they have never heard of Ever Dream, so I requested Dream On by "Aerosmith or Eminem" by writing it down on one of those little papers.  Based on my experience with the tip whores in Vegas, I added a dollar to sweaten the deal enough for them to actually play it.

Then the DJs complained a lot about not having enough requests, but never mentioned Dream On.  Various birthday girls all hung out on stage, and the DJs sang to them or whatever.  The worst anyone had to do was sit on the piano, in a normal seating position.  <-- foreshadowing

They were still complaining about running out of requests and not playing Dream On. Birthday girl--the one with our group--wanted to dance in the aisle so I pulled out some stuff I learned in the Blues club.  She gave me the 3rd degree regarding the exact date of my birthday.  She's not an asshole about it like Chris and Kev, so I just played the mystery card.  Thought she was just being kind and thinking of others, because she is like one of those unselfish people.  I was wrong.

When I wanted to cash out it was difficult waiting for our server to appear so I went to the bar.  The people at the bar looked through some cards, didn't find mine, and then looked at me funny and told me I had to go find my server.  Storing plastic cards with names on them is a solved problem.  They fail.  I made a mental note to never come back and hunted my server down so I could get my fucking card back.  Then I stopped at the bathroom.  Thats when they played Dream On.  Ha!  I wish.  That's when they started calling my name, my full name, via the microphone.

Suddenly I'm on stage, sitting on a piano.  No one told me why I was up there.  They made me sit on the piano for some random song that was not Dream On.  It was so boring.  The song was finally over and I slid off, thinking I had done my time, but then the DJ told me to lay on the piano face down and pose like a playboy centerfold.  Not making this up.  Then they told me to hump the piano while they played another song that was not Dream On.  I am so not making this up.  Some girls in the front did that screaming thing or whatever but I was pretty sure they were just excited to be drunk and none of them wanted to make out later.  I stayed as long as I could stand it and then left.  They never played Dream On.

I didn't really want to go home, but I was too drunk and too cold to go for a ride.  Some girl flagged me down in Pioneer Square to ask why I was walking so fast.  Started talking to her but these two bums descended on us like vultures and my reflexes were dulled by the rum.  She backed off.  I went home, thinking of a dozen ways I could have kept that conversation going.

In conclusion:  need to hit the blues club again.