No, seriously, I used to be shy! Honest!

Had a pretty eventful couple of days, with lots of activities with the Singles, most of which revolved around game playing. I was on a bit of a roll yesterday. Well, for me it was a roll; for the average, coordinated person it would have been a "dang, I'm all over the place today" thing. Personal highlights include:

• Making some relatively difficult shots at pool (and they were the shots I planned, even)
• Successfully figuring out who had the double-blank during Chickenfoot (although I was powerless to stop him)
• Making several strikes during bowling, two of which were in the final frames of our first two games
• Actually winning a game of bowling for possibly the first time ever (bowled a 122)

The bowling came about as a kind of guys-afternoon-out thing. Mama Lightbulb was having a baby shower for the soon-to-arrive Baby Lightbulb, so Papa L. invited a few guys out for an afternoon of bowling excitement. At first we paid for an hour of play, and got a couple of games in, and then we decided to pay for one more game. The man who shall henceforth be known as Smooth Money (due to his smooth bowling style and his catchphrase "That's money!") came up with an idea to change things up for our last game: he got a staffer to put down the bumpers and show us how to edit our scores on the computer, and then declared that if the ball did not bounce off of two bumpers before striking the pins, it didn't count.

After a few frames of very rambunctious playing, I suggested to Papa L. that we needed a big sign at out table reading "We're totally sober, honest." I was so impressed with the bumper-bowling strategy and style of one of our group (who showed great innovation with his bowling form and "come on, come on, fall over, fall over!" interpretive dances, and who even managed to get a strike), that I have decided to honor his achievements on this blog by dubbing him "Bumper." I'm sure he'll be much appreciative.

We were almost done with the 7th frame of our modified game when a different staffer, who shall henceforth be known as Stiffly Stifferson, came over to us and said, very defensively, "Guys, I can't have the bumpers up if you're going to be messing around like that, I've got to put them down." He then braced himself for full-out belligerent temper tantrum, and when we just said "Sure, whatever," he didn't seem to trust that we weren't going to prank him but good while he was putting them down. I can't really blame him for his trepidation, I'm sure we looked like a crowd of rowdy fratboys. Well, the others probably looked like a crowd of rowdy fratboys: I looked like the nerdy guy the fratboys let hang out with them in exchange for doing their homework. Still, we all thought it was strange that they waited so long to bust up the game. We went ahead and finished out the last few frames like normal, but after the fun and excitement of Double-Bumper-Bounce Bowling, it just wasn't the same.

Later that night I headed to the church to catch the shuttle out to the Lane Farm for an All-Singles cookout (All-Singles denoting all the different Singles classes, not just the one I teach). The Lane Farm get-togethers are always fun, with everyone breaking up into different groups to play games. After losing best 2 out of 3 at pool to Trouble (all 3 games being decided by one of us accidentally knocking the 8 ball in), I, along with Papa L. and Disaster Girl, wound up playing the dominoes game "Chickenfoot" with one of the more recent additions to The Singles. The newbie added her own rule to what has become a pretty standard Singles game: whenever you played a spinner, you had to cluck like a chicken. Papa L. wasn't too excited by the rule, but Disaster Girl and I dove in with wild abandon. I received several compliments on my clucking; Disaster Girl did not. Instead, she was accused by the All-Singles Head Honcho of making various other barnyard and jungle animal noises, prompting me to suggest that I change her nickname to "Mutual of Omaha." I was also in an extremely songbursty mood, and pretty much everything said around me triggered a song of some sort. At one point, one group of ladies sent word that they liked my singing voice; I'm still not sure if that was sarcasm or not.

During a break in playing, I wandered over to the snack table and was thrilled to find a plate of delicious brownies without any nuts in them. The newbie said "I'm glad I'm not the only one who hates nuts in brownies," and then Disaster Girl chimed in in agreement, making it three voice united against the mad urge that people have to put nuts in brownies, cake, ice cream, cinnamon rolls, etc. Although we had several people giving us strange looks and telling us we were oddballs, we stood firm behind our convictions, and thus was formed CAP'NS: the Coalition Against Puttin' Nuts in Stuff. Disaster Girl shall now be Cap'n Disaster; the newbie is Cap'n Cluck; and I shall be Cap'n Toad. Or Cap'n Monkey. Or Cap'n Paranoia. Or . . .

Anyway, during our game, Cap'n Disaster asked some questions about the blog (did I have a nickname for her son yet, when was I going to do the songs-that-remind-me-of-folks thing), and mentioned that when I assign roles to The Singles that she needs to be the Beautiful, Talented, Brilliant One. She then assured me that whatever I put, she would try not to take offense. Papa L. then spoke up, saying that he would take offense at whatever I put, just to be contrary. Cap'n Cluck then spoke up saying "What blog?" So, when I got home, I emailed her the link. Apparently she did quite a bit of reading through it last night, because this morning she came up to me and said "So, apparently I'm not a part of The Singles group because I haven't heard the Popular song." I told her I would be sure to perform it soon, since there were several others who hadn't had the great pleasure of hearing the now-classic tune. While making lunch plans at the beginning of class, we found out that it had been Bumper's birthday on Thursday, so as we were heading out I told them that I would sing the song at the restaurant.

Of course, once we got to the restaurant and got situated, the promise seemed to have slipped everyone's mind. But, being a conscientious monkey I couldn't very well back out of a promise (no, it has nothing to do with me being an attention hound, nosirree Bob). So, when there was a lull at the table, and Smooth Money made a comment about how we'd all apparently run out of things to talk about, I reminded Cap'n Cluck and Bumper about the promise. So, after a quick rundown of the story for the uninitiated, I belted out the Popular Song in the middle of Texas Roadhouse. Well, not quite the middle, more of off to the side in an alcove, actually, but there was another group of people seated in there, who kept giving us funny looks during the performance. As we were leaving, one of them stopped me, shook my hand, and thanked me for the entertainment. I told him that’s why I was placed on this Earth: to sing obscure songs in public places for complete and total strangers. Trouble suggested that they needed to come up with other embarrassing places for me to sing the song. I assured her that doing stuff like that doesn’t embarrass me; getting me to play sports in front of people, on the other hand, is a totally different story.

During the course of lunch, CoIM got brought up several times, and I was asked for the URL, with someone making the comment that I needed to share it with everyone in the group so nobody got jealous that they hadn’t seen it. You see, when I started this, I only gave the address to a couple of The Singles, since I wasn't sure how most people would react to my ramblings, and I didn't want to lose the respect of the folks I was teaching. But, between Double-Bumper-Bounce Bowling, Super-Clucking-Chickenfoot, Non-stop Songburst Mode, and Public "Popular" Performance, I think that whole "keeping their respect" ship has sailed, so as soon as this gets posted, the email goes out.

*waves to all The Singles who are stopping by for the first time, and who will now never come back to class, fearful of the crazy singing teacher monkey*