Sing ABBA or take off your pants

Ted options to sing Abba.

After reading the title of this entry you're probably thinking the same thing I was thinking at the time which was "What the...?". Let's rewind a bit as you're probably a bit confused and further explanation needs to be told.

I woke up early today (8am) to sort through some portraits (head shots) of a client I had shot just after the roller derby. Once I had the final CD burnt, I went to the grocery store to pick up some eggs for an appetizer to be had later that night. The client picked up the CD. I cooked the eggs and prepped them for transport.

I was making devilled eggs. The trick was to keep the center yellowy mush away from the hard boiled egg whites otherwise the resulting product would be a mess from transport. It occurred to me to separate the two and assemble them once at the destination.

I had just finished storing the two components (the mush and the egg whites) into separate containers and had thrown them into a portable cooler along with a ziplock bag of ice (which I froze the night before) when I looked at the clock. It was 5:30 and I had to get to Ryerson by 6:30 for a paid photo gig shooting a sound art convention called "Deep Wireless".

Once the last performance piece was done, I packed up my photo gear and raced over to Ted's place. This is where I was invited by Brigitte to play poker. As I wasn't sure how long they'd be there I got a little anxious on the subway ride there. It would suck to show up with devilled eggs to find out everyone went home.

People were still at the apartment when I got there. Upon entering the apartment I was told that I could either sing to some ABBA song or take off my pants. This was shortly after being asked if I wanted some ice cream sandwich cookie. The singing/pants demands took me off guard and I thought they were joking at first.

But no, this was the rule in order to buy into the poker pot. A rule that seemed to be made up by Brigitte and her friend Val. Where were the guys opinions on this? Ted seemed to be set on singing and Luke was pretty much on his way to the bathroom to take off his pants. What kind of poker party did I show up to? On top of these female dominated options I would also have to put in $10. The $10 seemed fair as everyone else that was playing had also put in $10 to play. It was now a question of "Do I sing the ABBA or pull down the jeans".

It's not everyday you get a girl telling you to drop your pants. Let me rephrase that... It's not everyday "I" get a girl to ask me to drop my pants. Getting my ass grabbed or felt up is a different story. I'm not really sure why but the occurrences of women making contact with my rear has been increasing these last few weeks. I'll have to detail this in another blog entry. As for tonight's poker demands, besides myself and Brigitte, there were three other people in the room and I am a shy person. I went with ABBA. The song, "Momma Mia".

Now it's one of those songs where you think you know the words but in reality it turns out that you, or more specifically I, thought I knew the words but in fact just placed gobblety-gook in where I didn't know the lyrics. This became apparent as I started squinting at the lyrics in the CD book while trying to sing. The results were just a bit worse than a cat under duress.

Luckily Brigitte was a good sport and thought I did okay considering. It was because of her I was allowed to play poker without further humiliation. It was also because of her that I won the poker game, her and that fact that I was dealt some pretty great hands. It was then also because of her that I won the $50 poker pot. The devilled eggs seemed to go over well. I'd say the night was going very well.

We watched a 12 minute movie Ted had directed and shot on video then ended up at the Velvet Underground to join Brigitte in her quest to dance. We were there drinking, socializing and dancing until the last song which was the Cure's "Close to me". I got home at 4am. Just in time to recharge the camera batteries and wake up to leave at 7am the next day for more Deep Wireless shooting.