20/twentysomething: Carol a mean tune, kid

Palm Coast Observer
Opinion

The way I figure it, my publisher, John Walsh, must have been dying to make it into the "20/twentysomething" blog. How else do you explain him organizing a mandatory caroling session at the PCO Christmas party?

He was basically begging for it.

The night started smoothly enough. The party was a tailgate, at Town Center. There was Woody’s Bar-B-Q, homemade cookies. I nailed our sports editor, Andrew O’Brien, square in the face with a beanbag while playing cornhole, and the bag kerplunked perfectly into his drink.

Things couldn’t have been going any better.

But then, like a blitzkrieg, candles were thrust into hands and John was rallying the troops, all of staff along with some unlucky friends, family and one county commissioner who got caught in the crossfire of forced Christmas cheer.

It was impossible to escape. Believe me, I tried.

Oh, no, no, I’d love to sing — I’d adore it — but I can’t, I said. You see, I’m sick. It’s my throat, I’m afraid. Oh, darn the luck!

But Walsh wasn’t buying it. So then I tried the “If I just stand in the back and keep real quiet and not follow the crowd toward the caroling line maybe I can duck out of this” routine.

Another no-go.

It was a harsh reality: I was going to carol. I can’t be sure, but I got the distinct impression John was prepared to fire anybody who crossed him. The guy meant business. He had the crazy eyes, burning and piercing with holiday spirit.

So off I went, slumped and with my hands in my pockets around the Central Park pond, stopping at each lighted structure of Santa and Frosty and Jesus, moving my mouth to the corresponding jingles whenever the bossman shot an eye my way.

“Why, are those carols in the air?” I imagined down-on-their-luck Palm Coastians uttering from afar. Maybe their girlfriend just left them or their dog died, but the sound of our collective spirit, I was sure, was cheering them up.

“Not to worry folks, it’s just your friendly, neighborhood PCO staff,” I told passersby. “No need for payment. The smiles on your cherub faces are as good as gold!”

After about the fifth song, I took to using my coworkers as human shields. I pretended to be having unreasonably engaging conversation with my parents, the kind you can’t just stop, the kind about family members making life-altering decisions. And plus, they were my parents; it would be rude to blow them off. I don’t see them as much as I used to, after all.

Approximately seven-and-a-half hours later, we made it around the pond and John, along with all of the girls who cheerled this debacle, were appeased. But the keg was tapped, so everybody left.

That’s when the rest of us went to McCharacters, and I made the rookie mistake of, in front of my friends, showing interest in a girl there.

When you’re single, it’s incredible: All of your friends and everyone you’ve ever met magically transform into relationship experts. Even your other single friends. It doesn’t matter if they have buck teeth, wear glasses held together in the middle with white tape and constantly talk about cheese, Urkel style — if they’re on the outside looking in, they’ve got it figured out. And they couldn’t be more eager to extend their wealth of experience your way.

Trust them — it’s their pleasure.

“Bro,” Ryan said, “do it.”

Matt Clay grabbed my shoulder, held my eyes for a heart-to-heart and gently told me, “You’re an idiot.”

I’ve known Matt Clay long enough to know what this meant. It meant, “Why haven’t you asked her out yet? Why haven’t you gotten her number? Have you found out her last name yet? What’s her favorite color? Does she like pizza? Everybody likes pizza. She wouldn’t be talking to you so much if she weren’t interested …

“Don’t blow it,” he said.

My cousin, the animated one who gets three inches from your face when he’s making a point, got three inches from my face and told me it was time I went in for the kill, said I’d be crazy if I didn’t. What was I doing?! he wondered, nudging the others in the group for backup.

“Right?” he was saying. “Am I wrong? Tell him! What’s the problem? Am I wrong? Right?!”

Even the girls got in on it, sending me text messages of encouragement and harassment.

Still, I couldn’t help but be confused at where all this was coming from. I was talking to the girl. Things were going well. Did they want me to stop her in her tracks, tell her, “Toots, enough pussyfooting. Your digits — now. I don’t got all night”?

Were they waiting for me to dip her backward, right there in the middle of the bar, and plant a sloppy wet one?

I plopped into a booth and did the single-guy stare, the move where you notice the crowd dwindling, realize it’s almost 2 a.m. but decide to stay out anyway, and you listen to your friends, the relationship doctors, and you let them talk, and advise, and consult. It’s clear that they know better — you know because they told you. And you realize, as their hungry eyes wait to see what happens next, that just like earlier at the Town Center, you’ve become the spectacle, the night’s main event for onlookers who want nothing more than to watch a bunch of spunky writers and salesmen pretend that singing to no one in a park isn’t depressing.

Just then, my cousin dropped his beer directly next to me, so close it looked like I spilled it. And he just left it there.

I stared down at the puddle, the foam bubbling hard like it was trying to rise above the carpet and escape into the air, out the door and toward the stars. And that’s when it hit me, a thought so horrific it nearly overshadowed every good memory I’d collected from 2011.

Wow, I thought. I’d rather be caroling.