And apparently eight years ago, while making my first-ever visit to the best-porch-on-earth Rehoboth beach house of some D.C. friends, I was inspired by the fact that all of us at the house owned black Speedos -- I know! An entire population of gay men who all own black Speedos? What are the odds? -- to teach a group of complete strangers -- who are curiously still all my friends -- a chunk of the "Single Ladies" choreography that we could use as a surprise performance at a pop-music-themed costume party ... all in the space of an afternoon. I convinced these poor men to go group shopping for matching black tank tops and enormous black pumps to replicate the bodysuits and combat heels from the Beyoncé video, and with the help of the magic of YouTube and the trusting patience of a group of guys who I again remind you were pretty much total strangers, we pushed aside the furniture, gamely donned our pumps and collectively put the proverbial ring on it:
Yes, there is extant video. No, I don't care to search around and find it for you.
We had intended to just casually announce at the party that we had a little performance we'd like to give and maybe uh-oh-oh in front of a few happen-to-be-nearby people in a corner, but imagine our surprise -- IMAGINE OUR SURPRISE! -- when we got to the party and discovered a CARPETED RUNWAY leading from the sidewalk to a FREAKING STAGE at the edge of the enormous back patio where probably a hundred pop-music-costumed people were watching expectantly as a Wynonna Judd drag queen emcee introduced each new group of guests to the party.
Seriously. SERIOUSLY.
Word spread instantly that my new beheeled and bespeedoed friends and I actually had an act to perform, and without even letting these guys have a moment to be nervous or offer up our own music, a random guest's iPhone was plugged into the sound system, the song was started from his iTunes library -- I know! How on earth did we manage to find a gay man with "Single Ladies" cued up on his iPhone at a moment's notice? -- and we all put our hands up, up in the club and started uh-oh-ohing to wild cheers ... until the iPhone playing our music suddenly got a call and the music abruptly stopped and we were left standing there mid-uh-oh-oh blinking blankly into the crowd until the iPhone owner could turn off the ringer and start the song again from the beginning and we could fully embrace our second chance to freaking ROCK OUR RED-CARPET RUNWAY ENTRANCE.
And that, my friends, is how you put gloss on your lips and a man on your hips and make an entrance-making show to an entire beach town of strangers that you have a sensitive side to your paragon of body-image-unattainable hypermasculinity. And uh-oh-oh you can't be mad at me.
We had intended to just casually announce at the party that we had a little performance we'd like to give and maybe uh-oh-oh in front of a few happen-to-be-nearby people in a corner, but imagine our surprise -- IMAGINE OUR SURPRISE! -- when we got to the party and discovered a CARPETED RUNWAY leading from the sidewalk to a FREAKING STAGE at the edge of the enormous back patio where probably a hundred pop-music-costumed people were watching expectantly as a Wynonna Judd drag queen emcee introduced each new group of guests to the party.
Seriously. SERIOUSLY.
Word spread instantly that my new beheeled and bespeedoed friends and I actually had an act to perform, and without even letting these guys have a moment to be nervous or offer up our own music, a random guest's iPhone was plugged into the sound system, the song was started from his iTunes library -- I know! How on earth did we manage to find a gay man with "Single Ladies" cued up on his iPhone at a moment's notice? -- and we all put our hands up, up in the club and started uh-oh-ohing to wild cheers ... until the iPhone playing our music suddenly got a call and the music abruptly stopped and we were left standing there mid-uh-oh-oh blinking blankly into the crowd until the iPhone owner could turn off the ringer and start the song again from the beginning and we could fully embrace our second chance to freaking ROCK OUR RED-CARPET RUNWAY ENTRANCE.
And that, my friends, is how you put gloss on your lips and a man on your hips and make an entrance-making show to an entire beach town of strangers that you have a sensitive side to your paragon of body-image-unattainable hypermasculinity. And uh-oh-oh you can't be mad at me.
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