Adz and Yaz decided to organise a Karaoke session to welcome in the Harvest Festival.

Session was supposed to start at nine pm, and I was gonna pick up people at 8.30. So after work, 5pm, I was about to go back home and kill some time when a couple of friends asked me out for a drink. Normally I don't take much in the way of alcohol, especially when I drive. I've been through the uni stage of drinking till my eyeballs float and I've gotten over it. A social drink once in a while or maybe a rare party where I cut loose is all. Still, the next day was a holiday, no work or anything, and I figured why not?

One drink became three beers and then I pulled out... 7.00 pm already and I wanted to get back and have a shower etc. 7.20 I got home, half an hour to get ready including delays of greeting my dogs at the gate, my family at the door and being tempted into checking my mail. Almost eight so I had a very light dinner with my mom, chicken and broccoli and since it was celebration time, a couple glasses of red wine.

8 something, was outside Adz's place but he'd already headed out to get Lasia. So I picked up Yazrin instead, and found out I'd already been to the place we were going to (for a dinner, not a karaoke).

Anyway, we picked up Jonny, and got to the place around nine. Along the way I was told that one of the guys with me was bringing in a bottle of 12 year old Chivas. Doubts about the wisdom of the beers and wine I'd taken began to surface.

The room was on the third floor and Roger, Adz, Lasia and some other girl whose name I've forgotten were already there and greeted us with loud music (ie they continued singing).The others were arriving a bit later.

I looked around the place... nice room... usual sofa seats,  couple of tables (with nuts and four jugs of beer on them), two air cons, a tv, usual karaoke sound system and an attached bathroom. I've been to joints where you have to leave the room to use the toilet, so I approve of an attached one, but this wasn't a toilet, it was a bathroom... with a bath! That suggested.... interesting possibilities....

So I settled down to enjoy the evening. I'm not a karaoke fan… the last time I really had a great time at it was in Tokyo and that was years ago. I don't have a good singing voice and I know it. Still, with the proper crowd I can have fun, and this bunch is always good for some entertaining times.

So how did it go? Lets put it this way… we were there from 9 pm to 2 am. Five hours. Nine people. One bottle of Chivas cut with a bottle of coke. A lot of beer (I thought it was 12 jugs but later found out it was 14) mixed with a bottle of sprite.

The singing was non-stop, the dancing started around midnight, the jokes were fast, and the drinks kept flowing. Since I drove I limited myself to two glasses of whisky-coke, (around 3:1 ratio) and stuck with beer. I estimate I had well over two jugs, maybe as much as four. The others might have had less volume of liquid, but more whisky, and less body-mass to off set it! We had several calls of yam-sing, but mainly aramaiti!

Two am, they called last song, we finished the last one and a half jugs in a five minute yam-sing straight down toast. Then out to the car park; two of us pretty well wasted, another two well on the way, and everyone else at a minimum of high!

Jonny had drunk the least, but he'd come in on an empty stomach and was tired, so he was pretty much into the sleepy stage. Audrey wasn't smashed, but she was drunk. Lasia was insisting she was fine, but she spent 5 minutes asking me if she had to go to work the next day, if her boss would be angry with her etc. Yaz was asking me to slap him (which I did of course! What are friends for right?) Roger has had enough practise to absorb the damage, and Damian came in at close to eleven and missed most of the whiskey… plus the sailor boy isn't an abstainer anyway.

After a false start, Audrey sent her car home and Roger picked her up… he didn't trust her with a car while the rest of us moved to Likas. Roger, Damian, Jonny and Audrey joined us later.

At Likas we went to a mamak stall and had various kinds of noodles, resulting in a discussion on the merits of soup noodles as opposed to fried noodles to balance a drinking session. Audrey and Yaz went outside to hurl, Adz and his carload left early cause they were finding it hard to SIT straight. Walking to their car involved a great deal of swaying!

Around three thirty my mom calls me up to say she's locked out, so I finish my maggi goreng and get my car. Johnny helps Yaz in and off we go.

Outside Yaz's gate we more or less carry him out of the car, and as he's staring at the gate trying to figure out how to open it, it slides open…. His bro just got home too. Carrying a laptop and some books and looking much more innocent than the guy we were supporting between us! We lugged him as far as his door and his bro came up behind us… so we left him there as he said he'd be ok. ( Considering the trouble he'd gone through to get breathmints etc to cover up the evening PRIOR to us starting, I wonder what story he spun for his bro… and if his bro bought it. I have to find out.)

I dropped Jonny home, got back around 4.20 to find that my bro had gotten back and let my mom in. So I hit the shower, drank a LOT of water and went to bed knowing that at 7.30 I'd have to be up.

All in all, I had a good time, and considering how out of practise I am, I'm still surprised I didn't hurl once, or even have more than a minor headache the next morning. My arm ached more and that was because I'd slept on my phone!