Frighteningly enough, "Freebird" IS an option

Dear Internet as a Whole,

I always thought the whole "You should never drink alone" line of thinking was perpetuated by prudes with small minds and stick-filled behinds. What's the difference between tossing back a few to yuk it up with your buddies and tossing back a few to yuk it up with yourself? I think I'm pretty good company when I'm drunk, quite the conversationalist, if a little handsy. But Tuesday night, I discovered that a compelling reason to have a friend close by while the wine flows is that you have the safety net of someone there to stop you.

Stop you from what? Whatever. Anything that will potentially mortify you when you sober up. Unless, of course, it's really more fun to let the drunk go on and see what could possibly happen next. That's the stuff of legends. Drunks are fun. When they're not vomiting.

I wasn't puking drunk Tuesday night, but after reading in the tub for an hour with a giant glass of wine, and then washing that down with its twin, I was definitely loose and undoubtedly up to no good. When I say "Tuesday night" what I really mean is "early early Wednesday morning" because this was happening after 3 o'clock. So, obviously, there was no one I could really bother in my state of liquid gregariousness - even drunk, I know better than to wake people up, especially those who have to work in the morning. Don't wanna put my friends and family through the hassle of needing to beat the shit out of me.

So, it was left to me to amuse myself. Luckily, I happen to be very easily amused.

First, I found myself drawn by the allure of Amazon.com. Online shopping while inebriated can be a hazardous activity, but luckily, when the smoke cleared, I had done nothing more harmful than ordering some magnetic poetry. It's always a relief to peek at my inbox when I awaken and not find any confirmation emails for emergency overnight shipping of the complete 12-volume DVD library of A&E Presents: Holy Men's Hemorrhoids - A Mystic Interpretation.

My biggest shame of the night was yet to come.

There was a dangerous combination brewing deep in me, a volatile mix of buzz and boredom. I wandered out into the living room, sat down on my bed, and started wading through the early morning infomercial swamp. I can still hear cheesy steel drums in my head from all the times the Girls Gone Wild promo was shown. There is no mercy in 4 a.m. television programming. Losing patience with the regular channels, I decided to check out the on-demand offerings.

None of the movies looked good to me, and when I tried to pick an HBO show, I found that Charter actually expected me to have a subscription to HBO to view the programs. The nerve! It was slim pickin's as far as I was concerned, and I was on the verge of turning on the PS2 for some all-cheating GTA: San Andreas when I saw...the shameful thing, the thing I oughtn't talk about here, the thing I should never admit unless in the company of a licensed therapist. This definitely falls into the category of "It seemed like a good idea at the time..." And even worse, the people who send me my cable bill will see what I purchased, and they will know I'm a total weirdo, and they will in all likelihood tell everyone they know. How long will it be before the whole world knows? That's why I thought it was just a better plan for me to 'fess up to it right now, get it out of the way, self administer a healthy dose of preemptive shame.

I...I...

I ordered the Karaoke Channel.

Did you know there was such a thing as the Karaoke Channel? I sure as fuck didn't. They sucked me right in with that one. They have hundreds of songs online at any one time, and when you pick one, it plays the musical accompaniment and displays the lyrics onscreen. What kind of dork subscribes to the Karaoke Channel?

This kind of dork, apparently.

If you left your computer right now, pulled your pants up, marched down the hall, fetched a fairly recent dictionary, and looked up the definition of pathetic, I'm pretty sure you would be shown the picture of a wine-soaked fortysomething woman, sitting alone on her bed at 5:30 a.m., singing Borderline and Don't You (Forget About Me) while staring at the TV. See also: Karaoke Channel, losers. At least when I watched those three episodes of General Hospital Wednesday I had company (hi, Squirl!).

General Hospital and the Karaoke Channel. Maybe I should christen the house, like a yacht but with much much cheaper champagne, and call it The Guilty Pleasuredome.