REVENGE OF THE DJ

Everything's going smoothly for the most part. People are drinking, dancing and having a good time.

An obviously drunken idiot comes staggering up to my area.

"Lemme borrow your microphone," he belches.

Ummmmmm ... no.

The problem with letting drunks use your microphone is that drunks don't like to give the microphone back. Once they get the microphone in their liquor-stained hands, they want to talk and talk and talk.

"Ummmmm ... no," I said. "I need it."

"Well gimme the microphone they was using earlier," he slurs. "That one that doesn't have a wire."

Oh.

The wireless one??

"It's over there on that table," I pointed.

He grinned.

"Thanksh," he mumbled as he walked sideways to get the microphone.

He makes his way to the microphone.

Now ... brief explanation ... there's two different sound systems in the room. There's my personal one which is blasting out music and then the house system which they were using earlier to hand out awards and talk about corporate crap.

He's on the corporate crap microphone.

"Hey everybody!" he yells into the microphone. "Is everybody ready to PARRRRRTYYYYYYY???"

A few people toss back the obligatory "Whooo!" at him to let them know that they are, in fact, prepared to party.

"I SAID IS EVERYONE READY TO PARRRRTYYYY?" he asks again, only much louder.

The same few people confirm that according to their personal calculations it may be time to commence partying with half-hearted "whooo"s.

"Listen," the drunk slurs. "I wanna give a shout-out to my boys. Randy ... I love you, man. You're my man, man. And Abraham ... I love you, man. You're the man, man."

The guy is beyond eloquent at this stage.

"I want everyone to start dancing!" he yells, oblivious to the 15-20 couples already on the dance floor. "This is a PARTY!! EVERYBODY DRINK AND DANCE ... AND ... AND ... FUCK!!"

A word of advice to those of you in the corporate world or for those of you soon-to-be-entering the corporate world ... it's usually best not to get so drunk at an office party that you grab a microphone and strongly encourage your co-workers to fornicate. Bosses tend to remember things like that when you've long forgotten them and are wondering why you're being passed over for promotions for several years in a row.

One of the bartenders walked up to the stage where I was at.

"Dude," he said. "Is there anyway you can shut that guy's microphone off?"

"There's the power supply behind that curtain," I pointed out. "But I have no idea how to shut it down."

The bartender pulled out a pen light and found the power button and turned the house system off.

We both kinda giggled like schoolgirls as we watched Drunk Asshole yell into a dead microphone silently.

Once he determined that his words of drunken encouragement weren't being blasted over the house system, he started hitting the top of the microphone with the palm of his other hand.

Finally, he brought the microphone back to me.

"It'sh not working," he burped.

"Not working??" I said as I grabbed the microphone out of his hand. "What did you do to it?"

"I di'nt do nothin'," he said as he looked like he wanted to cry. "I was talking in it and then it just stopped."

"It can't just stop," I said. "This is a (pull number out of your ass ... pull number out of your ass ...) $500 microphone! This is a top of the line microphone! It's built to withstand anything! What did you do to it?"

"Nothing!" the guy croaked. "I swear ... I was just talking on it!"

"Shit!" I said. "I need your name and phone number. I'm going to have to tell my boss about this in the morning and he's probably going to want to talk to you about it and get reimbursed for at least half the cost."

I promise you ... I really thought the guy was going to cry.

"I didn't do anything," he slurred again, as if repeating himself was going to make everything magically right and the microphone would magically crank up again and he could scream at his co-workers to smoke crack and sleep with Thai immigrants because that kind of behavior constituted PARTYYYYYY!!! in his book.

He walked away and I went over to the bartender to tell him my impromptu plan to get the guy to shut up.

"Dude," the bartender said. "That's COLD!"

"Yeah," I said. "But it worked. Got his name and phone number too."

"You should call him tomorrow!" the bartender said. "Pretend you're the manager and demand he pay for breaking the thing."

The guy's going to be hungover as hell today and won't know if he really broke the microphone or if he dreamt it.

I'm thinking about calling him.