OK, so I totally feel like this blog is bi-polar lately.  Sad, weird, sad, weird, sad wierd.  Whatever.  That’s how I roll right now.

So yesterday I was getting ready to tour a property for some friends of ours, when my cell phone rang.  It was a number I didn’t recognize, and Joey told me I’d better go take it.  I answered the phone and discovered it was a lady from church, a lady I had never seen before in the course of my life as she goes to first service.

“I have a rather odd request for you,” she said.

“OK,” I said.

“My daughter is getting married in December, and I wondered if you’d be willing to sing for it.  My daughter decided she didn’t like the last person I picked.  Said she had too much vibrato, but she was such a nice singer, she was classically trained Opera.”

Now that’s what I call pressure…what if she doesn’t like ME!  I am certainly not Opera trained (or any kind of trained, really) but the thought of her daughter, who lives in Colorado, listening to a poorly made CD (or – horrors – a  CASSETTE TAPE!) and giving the thumbs up or thumbs down gives me the jibblies.

“Uhhh…” I paused, “What does she want me to sing?”

“Well, she wants someone to sing acapella.  It will be a formal evening wedding,” the lady said.

Acapella.

Nice.

For a formal evening wedding.

“I can sing acapella…” I said hesitantly, wondering if this whole thing wasn’t spiraling down the path of no return and that I just was going to get my feelings hurt when her daughter gave me the heave-ho.

“Have you ever heard me sing?” I asked.

“No,” said the lady.  “But you were highly recommended.  Now what do you charge?”

This is the part of the conversation where I actually burst out laughing.  And very loud laughing, too.  I have never in my entire  life charged anything for any of the weddings I’ve sung in, and I told the lady as much.

“We can work that out later,” she said.

I finally ended the call by mentioning to the lady that I’m singing on Sunday, so she can come give me a test run in the worship service to see if it’s worth bothering her daughter to listen to another CD/tape of someone her mother has selected.

Now I’m going to be so nervous on Sunday, so my voice will probably crack and go flat and I’ll sing the wrong songs.  This is lame and weird and cracks me up, all at the same time.

When I related the utter strangeness of the phone call to Joey, he laughed and laughed, poked me in the ribs and called me the wedding singer.

However, if she does wind up paying me, he won’t laugh anymore.