The Clown who Croaked...

I thought it’s going to be another usual birthday celebration with my pals, Jeas and Fang. We had ala carte buffet dinner at xxx Japanese restaurant. The restaurant’s owner boasted serving only top-grade sashimi. True to his words, we weren’t let down. The steamboat was good too. Chatted the usual stuff. Laughed. Ate. Laughed again. Stoned.

Went up to Mount Faber for a drink at Altivo Bar. Can’t tell you how long I’ve been wanting a drink. Haha. The alcohol, brewing the feel of other-worldliness, serenity and trance in me. That feeling of intoxication. I’m not an addict but I sure like drinking. (Get that lady a Tiger. Haha. Nope! Nope! Hoegarden and Kilkenny’s fine. But Tiger? No way! Not exactly into beer anyway. There are nicer drinks around.)

Cool. There was someone else celebrating his birthday at the bar. And with a live band playing, the only logical thing was for his friends to make a birthday song dedication for him. Then, suddenly Jeas lunged towards a waiter, grabbed his hand and whispered into his ears. Don’t ask me why she grabbed his hand. The waiter wasn’t exactly suave and she wasn’t exactly drunk.

Then I realised she only did the logical thing too – make a birthday song dedication for me. “We have another birthday in the house today. Weifen, are you here? Weifen?”

Darn. I hate wrong names. Life’s already bad enough when people call you “Miss Fishy” and “Merlion” since young. Now, it has to come in one of those all-too-familiar mutable, innocuous form, Weifen.

I looked at Fang, who in her usual excited state, raised her hand and voice the same time, yelling: “Here, here!!” And so, the band sang a birthday song for Weifen, who is otherwise also commonly known as Weizhen.

The band joked that we send a piece of birthday cake over to them during their break Courtesy of Fang, again, -- who was overly enthusiastic – the cake was promptly delivered to them. That woman sure could talk to anybody, or anything. She managed to coax a bird to fly down from a tree before. (Joking!!) She stood there and talked for a while.

Before I realized what transpired, this was what happened: “The friends of the birthday girl would like to invite her to come up on stage to sing a song.”

Darn!! DARN!! DARRNNN!!! Arghhhh…Did they have to do that to me? I know I made their ears suffer with my multiple shrieks and screeches during KTV sessions. But I didn’t know they were such vicious people. Totally. Vicious. They wanted me to pay back for their emotional and psychological upheaval. Totally uncalled for. I refused to barge from my seat.

The singer, after finishing her song, came over and cajoled me to go up on stage. She suggested “You’re Still the One”. Right, simple enough song. Could be done. So I sportingly agreed. Not that I’ve never done stupid things in my life before. Was up on stage in my primary school pinafore (without the blouse) doing a stupid dance to entertain the CS crowd three years back. (The theme for our graduation party was decadent school life). Made to propose to my class monitor during our sec two camp 12 years ago before the entire class. What’s new, anyway?

I shot Jeas and Fang down with my menacing eyes and vouched revenge till eternity. And up on stage I went. Boy. I didn’t know I could get so nervous. My voice was trembling. My pitch was off. And I sang too fast. Totally embarrassing. Many pairs of eyes on me, right to the end of the song. Hmmm, but I think I didn’t sing that badly because the audience didn’t faint. There were even some cheers. Cheers of courtesy, I guess.

To round up the day of unexpected events, here’s another twist: “Weizhen, every week we’ll give two lucky diners $50 voucher. We’re presenting one to you for being so sporting.” Wooooh. $50 for 3 minutes of embarrassment. So I took the voucher, thanked the singer, scampered back to my seat and we were out of the place in a minute.