“Gotta curate the vibe, mom,” the karaoke host smirked, his words cutting through the noise of a bad Olivia Rodrigo cover.
He didn’t just skip our songs; our turn was a casualty in his personal war against anyone over thirty. For weeks, my friends and I had watched his little grift unfold, a pay-to-play scheme disguised as a karaoke night. The man-bunned tyrant in charge of the microphone had made our one night out his personal fiefdom.
But calling me mom was his final, fatal mistake.
He was about to learn that a project manager with a grudge keeps very detailed receipts, and I was preparing to present my findings in the most public and humiliating way imaginable.
The Slow Burn: The Gospel of Leo
The air in The Rusty Mic tasted like stale beer, lemon-scented cleaning fluid, and shattered dreams. It was our sanctuary. Every Thursday for the past two years, my friends Maria, Chloe, and I would claim our corner booth, the one with the cracked red vinyl that stubbornly imprinted its pattern onto your thighs. It was our weekly ritual, a pressure-release valve from project deadlines, teenage sons, and the quiet hum of suburban existence. For three hours, we weren’t a project manager, a dental hygienist, and a high school librarian. We were rock stars in waiting.
Our god was the Karaoke Host, a man-bunned tyrant in his late twenties named Leo. He commanded the room from a throne of tangled cables and a glowing laptop screen, holding the power of song in his hands. Tonight, like the past six Thursdays, that power felt… selective.
We’d put our names in at 8:02 PM. It was now 9:47 PM. I’d nursed one overpriced chardonnay to its watery dregs. Maria had already cycled through two spicy margaritas and was tapping a restless rhythm on the sticky table.
“Seriously?” she muttered, watching a girl in a crop top—we’ll call her Tiffany—bounce off the stage after a breathless rendition of a Taylor Swift song. It was her second time up. We hadn’t even been called once.
“The list is the list, Maria,” Chloe said, ever the diplomat, pushing her glasses up her nose. “He’s probably just trying to mix up the genres.”
But he wasn’t. The genre for the last hour had been “V-Neck and Vocal Fry.” A parade of Chads and Tiffanies, all seemingly friends of Leo’s, had been on a non-stop rotation. They sang current pop hits, hip-hop tracks with more spoken words than notes, and the occasional ironic 90s boy band tune. Our slips of paper, bearing the weight of Pat Benatar, Bonnie Raitt, and a very ambitious Heart ballad, languished in his little plastic box.
Leo scanned his laptop, a smirk playing on his lips. “Alright, alright, settle down, you animals. We got another banger coming up. Give it up for… Chad!”
The same Chad who had murdered a Post Malone song forty minutes ago swaggered back to the stage. My jaw tightened. It wasn’t just about the wait. It was the slow, creeping realization that the rules, the ones we’d all implicitly agreed to by writing our names on a slip of paper, didn’t apply to everyone. There was a system here, and at forty-nine years old, I was apparently on the wrong side of it.
Curating the Vibe
“Okay, my name is literally next,” Maria hissed an hour later, pointing at the dog-eared spiral notebook Leo now used as a queue list, propped open on the edge of his DJ stand. From our vantage point, we could just make out her name scrawled under a guy named “Kevin G.”
Kevin G. finished a surprisingly soulful rendition of a Sam Cooke classic. The room applauded, a genuine, warm sound. It was a brief respite from the parade of trendy apathy.
Leo grabbed the mic. “Big ups for Kevin G., folks. A true classic. Now, let’s keep that energy high.” He glanced down at his notebook, his eyes skipping right over Maria’s name. I saw it happen. It wasn’t a mistake. It was a decision. “Let’s get… Brittany back up here!”
A collective groan escaped our booth. Brittany, of the glitter eyeshadow and questionable vocal control, had already sung once.
Maria slumped back into the vinyl, defeated. “I don’t get it. He looked right at my name.”
“Maybe he thinks ‘Conga’ is a low-energy song?” Chloe offered weakly.
That’s when it happened. As Brittany shrieked her way through an Olivia Rodrigo bridge, I caught Leo’s eye. I gave him a small, questioning shrug, a universally understood gesture for “What gives?”
He leaned over his laptop and smirked, a conspiratorial, condescending little grin. He cupped his hand over his mouth and stage-whispered, loud enough for me to hear over the music, “Gotta curate the vibe, mom. Ballads and oldies kill the flow.”
Mom.
The word landed like a punch to the gut. It wasn’t just that he called me old. It was the casual dismissal, the smug certainty that my taste, my generation, my very presence was a problem to be managed. A vibe-killer. He hadn’t just skipped my friends; he had passed a judgment. We were the background noise, the nostalgic filler he had to tolerate between the real performers, the ones who mattered.
I looked at Maria’s disappointed face, at Chloe’s attempt to find a logical reason for blatant disrespect. The stale air in the bar suddenly felt suffocating. The issue wasn’t the list anymore. The issue was Leo.
Kitchen Table Indictments
The next morning, the indignation hadn’t faded. It clung to me like the smell of fryer oil on my jacket. I sat at my kitchen island, nursing a coffee, while my husband, Mark, buttered his toast.
“He called you ‘mom’?” Mark asked, his brow furrowed. “The little punk.”
“And it wasn’t just that,” I explained, pacing the length of the granite countertop. “It was the way he said it. Like I was a fly in his artisanal, curated soup. For two months, it’s been the same thing. We get there early, we sign up, and we watch the same dozen kids sing twice, sometimes three times, before one of us gets called around midnight, right before he shuts it down.”
Mark took a bite of toast. He’s an engineer, a man who sees the world as a series of problems to be solved with logic and data. “So, he’s playing favorites. It’s his show. He can run it however he wants, can’t he?”
“But it’s supposed to be first-come, first-served! That’s the entire premise of karaoke sign-ups. It’s the great equalizer. It doesn’t matter if you’re a CEO or a college kid, you write your name down and you wait your turn. He’s turned it into his personal fiefdom.”
“His ‘Mic List Mafia’,” Mark chuckled, trying to lighten the mood.
I stopped pacing. “Don’t joke. It feels like that. It’s just so… dismissive. We spend money there. We’re good customers. But to him, we’re just these middle-aged women with our sad little power ballads, harshing his cool-kid mellow.”
The ethical gears in my project-manager brain were grinding. This wasn’t just about a missed chance to sing “Alone” by Heart. It was about fairness. It was about the casual ageism that seeps into the world, telling you that your time is past, your tastes are irrelevant. It was a microcosm of a much larger, more insidious cultural shrug.
“What are you going to do?” Mark asked, wiping crumbs from his mouth. “Find a new bar?”
The thought was tempting. Just walk away. Find a place with an older crowd, a KJ who still had a CD binder. But the idea of letting Leo win, of letting his smug, generational gatekeeping go unchallenged, stuck in my craw. It felt like surrender.
“No,” I said, my voice hardening. “I’m not going to find a new bar. I’m going to figure out exactly what his game is.”
A Wrinkle in the System
That next Thursday, I arrived with a new sense of purpose. I wasn’t just here to sing; I was on a reconnaissance mission. I ordered my chardonnay and, when Leo wasn’t looking, I pulled out my phone. I angled it just so and took a clear, time-stamped photo of the sign-up sheet at 8:15 PM. Our names were fourth, fifth, and sixth on the list.
The first three singers, a trio of earnest guys in flannel, went up in order. My heart gave a hopeful flutter. Maybe I’d imagined it all. Maybe last week was a fluke.
Then the V-Neck Crew arrived.
They didn’t even go to the sign-up sheet. Chad, the ringleader, sauntered right up to Leo’s stand. There was a low murmur of conversation, a bro-hug, and then something else. A handshake that was more than a handshake. I saw the corner of a green bill pass from Chad’s palm to Leo’s. It was fast, slick, and practiced. Leo didn’t even look at it, just palmed it and slipped it into his pocket as he cued up the next track.
And who was the next singer? Not me, not Maria, not Chloe. It was Tiffany, who had just walked in the door.
My blood ran cold, then hot. It wasn’t just favoritism. It wasn’t just about “curating a vibe.” It was a grift. A pay-to-play scheme running right here in our friendly neighborhood dive bar.
I watched Leo for the rest of the night, my project manager brain kicking into overdrive. I saw it two more times. A quiet word, a subtle hand-off, and a sudden, magical leap to the top of the queue. The notebook on his stand was pure fiction, a prop to maintain the illusion of fairness. The real list was in his head, dictated by his ego and his wallet.
My friends were getting visibly frustrated, ready to cash out and call it a night.
“Just one more drink,” I urged them, my eyes glued to the stage. “I have a feeling things are about to get interesting.”
They didn’t know it yet, but this was no longer a simple complaint. It was an investigation. And I was about to start gathering my evidence.
The Investigation: The Data Doesn’t Lie
My work bag, usually filled with Gantt charts and budget proposals, now held a different kind of project file: a slim notebook labeled “The Rusty Mic.” For the next three weeks, I became a karaoke ethnographer. My methods were simple but ruthlessly effective.
Each Thursday, I’d arrive at 8:00 PM sharp.
Step one: Time-stamped photo of the official sign-up sheet.
Step two: Open a note on my phone.
Step three: Record the actual order of singers, timestamped, with the name of their song.
The discrepancy was staggering. On paper, the list was a beautiful, democratic mix of ages and genres. In reality, it was a closed loop. The same eight to ten people, all under thirty, all part of Leo’s inner circle, cycled through repeatedly. My friends and I, along with a handful of other patient, older regulars, were the “filler.” He’d sprinkle us in every ninety minutes or so, like a chef adding just enough salt to a dish to claim it’s seasoned.
One night, a man named Doug, a sweet retired postal worker who always sang Johnny Cash, waited for two and a half hours. His name was clearly visible, tenth on the list. Leo called number nine, then number twenty-four, then number fifteen. Doug finally packed up his coat and left, his shoulders slumped. Leo didn’t even notice.
I documented it all. Chad’s three performances in one night. Brittany’s back-to-back songs. The way Leo would announce, “Alright, let’s pull from the bottom of the list to mix it up!” and then mysteriously call a name that wasn’t on the list at all—someone who had just walked in.
Maria thought I was becoming obsessed. “Rhea, it’s karaoke. Are you building a legal case against him?”
“It’s the principle of the thing,” I’d say, my fingers flying across my phone’s keyboard. “It’s a broken system. And I know how to fix broken systems.”
At work, I managed multi-million dollar construction projects. I wrangled contractors, appeased stakeholders, and navigated byzantine permit processes. I lived by timelines, budgets, and clearly defined deliverables. Leo’s little karaoke kingdom was, in its own small way, the most poorly managed project I’d ever seen. And it was starting to piss me off.
Digital Breadcrumbs
The breakthrough came from my son, Noah. He was home from college for the weekend, watching me pore over my notes at the kitchen table.
“What is all this?” he asked, grabbing a box of cereal from the pantry.
“I’m documenting a pattern of systemic corruption and preferential treatment at a local karaoke bar,” I said, completely serious.
He stared at me for a beat, then laughed. “Mom, you’re a dork. What’s the KJ’s name?”
“Leo,” I said. “Why?”
“Because guys like that live online,” Noah said, crunching on a handful of dry cereal. “He’s probably got a cringey Instagram handle and a SoundCloud nobody listens to. Bet he’s bragging about it somewhere.”
It was like a lightbulb went off. Of course. The physical evidence was one thing, but the digital trail—that’s where the real story would be. I felt a surge of foolishness for not thinking of it sooner.
It took me less than five minutes. A search for “KJ Leo” and the bar’s name brought up his Instagram. The profile picture was him, mid-song, head thrown back in a silent, self-important scream. His bio read: “Audio-Visual Curator & Vibe Architect @ The Rusty Mic.” I had to resist the urge to throw my laptop across the room.
His feed was a monument to his own ego: artfully blurry photos of his V-Neck Crew singing, videos of the crowd dancing (only during his friends’ songs, I noted), and selfies from his DJ booth. But it was a link in his bio that caught my eye. It was a simple, purple and white logo.
Discord.
The link led to a public server. The name of the server made my blood boil. It was called “Mic List Mafia.” Mark’s joke had been a prophecy.
Inside the Rabbit Hole
I created a fake Discord account. My username was “PowerBalladPam.” My avatar was a generic picture of a sunset. I slipped into the server, a digital ghost in Leo’s machine.
It was worse than I could have imagined.
This wasn’t just a fan club; it was a command center for his entire grift. There were channels for everything. In `#set-requests`, members would post the songs they wanted to sing that week. In `#the-roster`, Leo would lay out a rough schedule of his preferred singers, the ones he considered “A-Listers.”
But the most damning channel was `#vibe-donations`. The instructions were pinned to the top, written by Leo himself.
“Yo Mafia! U know the drill. Thursday is POPPIN’ and the list gets long. Wanna guarantee your spot in the prime-time hours (9-11pm)? A lil’ Vibe Donation to my Venmo (@LeoTheLion) goes a long way. Not required, but def appreciated. Helps me keep the energy HIGH and the cringe LOW. 🤫”
Below it, a cascade of smug posts.
Chad92: Sent u some pizza money, bro. Lock me in for Bieber.
TiffSings: Donation sent! Need to do my new Doja Cat arrangement! Plz don’t put me after one of the wine moms, they bring the room down so hard.
LeoTheLion: @TiffSings Got u fam. I’ll buffer u with a banger.
My hands were shaking. It was all there, in black and white. A digital monument to his corruption. He wasn’t just bumping his friends; he was extorting them. He was monetizing the queue. And the casual cruelty, the open mockery of people like me—the “wine moms”—was breathtaking. They weren’t just skipping us. They were laughing about it.
I scrolled for hours, my rage building with every screenshot. I saved conversations, Venmo receipts posted as bragging rights, and Leo’s own comments where he openly mocked song choices.
“Some lady just asked for ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’,” one of his posts read. “I told her the system crashed. LOL. #VibeCuration”
Dozens of laughing-face emojis followed his post.
I felt a profound, clarifying anger. This was no longer about a hobby. This was about a bully who had built himself a tiny throne and was charging a toll to anyone he deemed unworthy of crossing his bridge. He was a petty tyrant in a world of his own making. And like every project I’d ever managed, this one was about to have a very public, very final review.
The Last Straw
The night I decided to bring it all down was the night of Chloe’s birthday. She wasn’t a big birthday person, but we had insisted. We’d brought a small cake and convinced her to put in a song she loved, a goofy, joyful ABBA tune. It was her one request for the night.
We signed up at 8:10 PM. I took my customary photo of the list. We were seventh, eighth, and ninth. Perfect.
By 10:30 PM, we hadn’t been called. The Mic List Mafia was in full effect, a carousel of the young and the Venmo-blessed. Chloe’s smile had faded, replaced by a look of quiet resignation.
“It’s okay, guys,” she said, picking at the label on her beer bottle. “We can just go soon.”
“No,” I said, my voice tight. “It’s your birthday. You’re singing ‘Dancing Queen’.”
Just then, Leo called up a guy who had arrived twenty minutes earlier. He sang a flawless, soulless Ed Sheeran song. The V-Neck Crew loved it.
After his song, Leo grabbed the mic. “Alright, folks, we’re heading into the last hour of the night. Gotta make ‘em count!” He looked at his list, his eyes doing that familiar, deliberate skip. He opened his mouth to call the next of his cronies, but I stood up. I couldn’t help it.
“Hey, Leo!” I called out. My voice was louder than I intended. The conversations around the bar quieted. “What about number nine? My friend has been waiting over two hours. It’s her birthday.”
Leo froze, a deer in the headlights of his own ego. The bar was silent. He looked from me to his laptop, a flicker of panic in his eyes. He forced a slick, customer-service smile.
“Hey now, we’re getting to everyone, I promise. Just gotta… work the flow.”
Then he turned to the room, a smarmy, conspiratorial wink in his voice. “You know how it is. Can’t follow up a banger like that with… a history lesson.”
A few of his friends snickered. The insult, so public and so specific, hung in the air. He wasn’t just skipping Chloe. He was mocking her, mocking us, for the crime of being born before 1990.
Chloe’s face crumpled. She grabbed her purse. “I want to go home.”
That was it. The last straw. This wasn’t just a broken system anymore. It was a weapon he was using to humiliate people. As Maria and I comforted Chloe, gathering our things, I felt a cold, hard certainty settle in my chest. The investigation was over. It was time for the presentation.
The Confrontation: War Room and Devil’s Advocate
My kitchen island became a war room. I printed out the most damning evidence: Leo’s pinned post from the `#vibe-donations` channel, screenshots of his cronies confirming their payments, his own words mocking the “wine moms” and their “history lesson” songs. I arranged them in a neat, undeniable narrative. Cause, effect, and a whole lot of douchebaggery.
Mark stood beside me, sipping his coffee, a look of grudging admiration on his face. “You know,” he said, “for a karaoke dispute, this is impressively thorough. You’ve got a real smoking gun here.”
“I’ve got an entire arsenal,” I corrected him. “But it has to be deployed correctly. I can’t just email this to the owner. This needs to be public. It needs to happen in his arena, on his turf.”
My plan was simple. I wouldn’t go to the owner first. I would go to Leo. I would confront him in the middle of his show, when the room was full, when his power was at its peak. I wanted to see the look on his face when his curated world came crashing down around him.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea, Rhea?” Mark played devil’s advocate, a role he relished. “He’ll just deny everything. He’ll say you faked the screenshots. He’ll paint you as some crazy, bitter old lady. You could get yourself and your friends banned for life.”
“Let him try,” I said, tapping a screenshot of Leo’s Venmo handle. “This isn’t about getting him to admit it. This is about making a statement. It’s about creating a scene so undeniable that the owner has no choice but to act. I’m not going in there to argue with him. I’m going in to present my findings.”
I felt a strange calm. My project manager brain had taken over, suppressing the anger and humiliation and channeling it into pure, focused strategy. This was the final phase of the project: implementation. There would be a risk assessment, a clear objective, and a defined measure of success.
Success wasn’t just getting Leo fired. Success was restoring the democratic soul of karaoke night. Success was making sure no one ever felt the way Chloe did on her birthday again. And maybe, just a little bit, success was watching Leo squirm.
The Longest Wait
The following Thursday felt different. The usual buzz of anticipation was replaced by a knot of anxiety in my stomach. Maria and Chloe were there, flanking me like a secret service detail. They knew the plan. Maria was vibrating with vengeful energy. Chloe looked like she was about to be sick.
“You don’t have to do this, Rhea,” Chloe whispered as we took our booth. “We can just go to that place over in Centerville.”
“No,” I said, giving her hand a squeeze. “This isn’t just for us. It’s for Doug the postal worker. It’s for every person who ever sat here waiting patiently for their turn while King Leo held court for his paying subjects.”
I didn’t sign up to sing. Tonight, my performance would be of a different kind.
We watched the familiar scene unfold. The V-Neck Crew arrived, exchanged their sly handshakes, and immediately populated the singing queue. Leo was in his element, bobbing his head to the music, basking in the adoration of his Mafia. He was so confident, so untouchable in his little kingdom of cables and speakers. He had no idea he was the subject of a hostile takeover.
I waited. My timing had to be perfect. Not too early, when the bar was still filling up. Not too late, when people were starting to drift home. I needed a full house. A captive audience.
At 10:15 PM, Chad finished his second song of the night. The applause was peppered with a few groans from the back of the bar. The natives were getting restless. Leo, oblivious, beamed at his friend.
“Give it up for Chad, everybody! Killing it, as usual!”
He turned to his laptop, ready to anoint the next chosen one.
That was my cue. I pushed my chair back, the sound scraping against the concrete floor. I took a deep breath, clutching the folder of printouts in my hand. Mark’s words echoed in my head. He’ll paint you as some crazy, bitter old lady.
Maybe he would. But I had my receipts.
“Run the Lists”
I walked towards the stage, not with the hesitant shuffle of a nervous singer, but with the steady, purposeful stride of a manager heading into a difficult meeting. Every eye in the bar followed me. The low hum of chatter died down.
Leo looked up, his smile faltering as I approached. He saw I wasn’t holding a song slip.
“Whoa there,” he said into the mic, forcing a laugh. “The stage is this way, hon. Sign-up sheet is over there.”
I stopped directly in front of his DJ stand, leaving a few feet of space between us. I held up my empty hands, palms open, a gesture of non-aggression.
“I’m not here to sing, Leo.” My voice was calm, clear, and amplified by the sudden, dead silence of the room. “I have a simple request. I want you to run the last four weeks’ queue lists for the room. Out loud.”
He blinked. “What?”
“The sign-up sheets,” I clarified, my voice unwavering. “And then, I want you to read the list of the people who actually sang on those nights. The ones I’ve been tracking right here.” I gestured vaguely toward my phone in my pocket. “Just so we can all see how the system works.”
Panic flared in his eyes. He tried to play it off, turning to the crowd. “Looks like we got a real karaoke conspiracy theorist here, folks!”
A few of his friends chuckled weakly, but most people were just watching, intrigued. The air was thick with tension.
“Just read the lists, Leo,” I said again, my voice a little harder this time.
He squared his jaw, his bravado returning. “I’m not doing that. I’m here to run a show, not an audit. Now if you’ll get out of the way, I’ve got singers who have been waiting.”
The irony was so thick you could taste it.
The bar was completely quiet now. Even the bartender had stopped polishing glasses to watch. This was the moment of truth. He had refused. Now, it was my move.
“You’re right,” I said, my voice softening just a little. “You don’t have to. But I think your boss might be interested in why you won’t.”
I turned my head slightly and looked directly at the man standing by the end of the bar, the one I’d been waiting for. Frank, the owner. A stout, no-nonsense guy in his late fifties. I had called him an hour earlier and told him there was a serious issue with his Thursday night host that required his immediate attention.
Leo followed my gaze. The color drained from his face.
The Hostile Takeover
Frank walked over, his expression unreadable. “What’s going on here, Rhea? Leo?”
Leo immediately went on the offensive. “Frank, thank god. This woman is harassing me. She’s disrupting the show, making these crazy accusations.”
I didn’t say a word. I just opened the folder I was holding. I handed the first page to Frank. It was the screenshot of Leo’s `#vibe-donations` post on Discord, his Venmo handle clearly visible.
Frank’s eyes scanned the page. His bushy eyebrows drew together. He looked from the paper to Leo, whose face had gone from pale to a blotchy, panicked red.
“What is ‘Mic List Mafia’?” Frank asked, his voice dangerously low.
“It’s a joke! A fan club thing!” Leo stammered, his hands fluttering nervously over his laptop. “These are just my regulars, we have a group chat…”
I handed Frank the next page. A conversation between Chad and Leo, confirming a “donation” for a prime-time spot. Then another. And another. Then, the pièce de résistance: the screenshot of Leo bragging about faking a system crash to avoid playing “Total Eclipse of the Heart.”
Frank read each page in silence, the evidence mounting. The entire bar was watching the drama unfold. You could hear a pin drop. Maria and Chloe had come to stand behind me, a silent wall of support. I saw Doug the postal worker near the back, his eyes wide.
When Frank finished reading, he stacked the papers neatly and placed them on the DJ stand. He looked at Leo, not with anger, but with a profound, weary disappointment.
“You’ve been charging my customers to sing,” Frank said. It wasn’t a question.
“No! It’s not like that! It’s… it’s like a tip jar!” Leo pleaded, his voice cracking. “I’m curating a vibe, Frank! Keeping the energy up! These… these older ladies, they sing these sad, slow songs, it clears the room!”
It was the worst possible thing he could have said.
Frank’s face hardened. “These ‘older ladies,’ as you call them, have been coming here every week for two years. They’re my customers. You’re my employee. You don’t get to decide which customers matter. And you sure as hell don’t get to run a pay-to-play grift in my bar.”
He turned to the silent, watchful crowd. “Show’s over for tonight, folks. Bar’s still open. All tabs are twenty percent off for the inconvenience.” He then looked back at Leo, his voice dropping to a gravelly, final tone.
“Pack your gear. You’re done.”
The Justice: A New System
The following Thursday, the air in The Rusty Mic felt different. Lighter. A large, flat-screen TV, previously used for showing sports games on mute, was now mounted on the wall beside the stage. On it, a simple, clean spreadsheet was displayed in huge font. It had three columns: “#”, “NAME”, and “SONG.”
Frank stood by the sign-up table, which now held a fresh, clean notebook and a single pen tied to it with a string. He greeted people as they came in, a mix of old regulars and curious newcomers who had likely heard the story through the town grapevine.
“New system,” he explained to us as we approached. “First-come, first-served. No exceptions. Your name goes in the book, it goes up on the screen. Everyone sees the queue, live and in real-time. Full transparency.”
He looked at me, a genuine, appreciative smile on his face. “Thanks to you, Rhea. You did me a favor. I had no idea he was running that… that mafia of his.”
“Just managing a project that had gone off the rails,” I said with a shrug.
Maria clapped me on the back. “She’s being modest. She was a karaoke vigilante.”
We signed up. Rhea, Maria, Chloe. Numbers four, five, and six. We watched as Frank’s new hire, a cheerful young woman named Sarah, typed our names into the spreadsheet. They popped up on the big screen instantly, a beautiful, immutable promise. There was no wiggle room, no V-Neck Crew cutting the line, no vibe to be curated. There was only the list. It was glorious.
The V-Neck Crew was nowhere to be seen. Their king had been deposed, their pay-to-play scheme dismantled. Without their cheat code, they were just average singers who would have to wait their turn like everyone else. Apparently, that held no appeal. The bar was filled with a more eclectic, more interesting mix of people. Doug the postal worker was there, looking ten years younger. A group of nurses on their night off. A young couple on a date. It felt like a community again.
The First Note
The first few singers went up, right in order. Number one, number two, number three. Sarah, the new KJ, was efficient and friendly. She didn’t offer commentary; she just played the songs and encouraged the singers. The energy in the room was warm, supportive. People clapped for everyone, whether they were good or not, because they were all part of the same pact.
When number three finished, Sarah’s voice came over the speakers. “Alright, up next we’ve got Rhea! Come on up, Rhea!”
My stomach did a little flip. I hadn’t even thought about what I would sing. My entire focus for weeks had been on the mission, not the music.
Maria and Chloe pushed me out of the booth. “Go on! This is your victory lap!” Maria cheered.
As I walked towards the stage, Frank intercepted me.
“It’s only right that you open the new era, so to speak,” he said, shaking my head. “Thanks again, Rhea. Seriously.”
I took the microphone from Sarah. It felt heavier than usual. I looked out at the crowd. They were all looking at me, smiling. They knew. The story had clearly made the rounds. I wasn’t just the fourth singer on the list. I was the woman who had de-rigged the kingmaker.
I needed the right song. It couldn’t be a sad ballad. It couldn’t be a throwaway pop tune. It had to be an anthem. Something with teeth. A song about being underestimated, about being wronged, and about finally, finally speaking your truth.
A wicked little smile spread across my face. I knew the one.
I leaned into the mic. “Sarah, can you find me ‘You Oughta Know’ by Alanis Morissette?”
A whoop went up from the group of nurses. Sarah gave me a thumbs-up. The familiar, simmering bass line started, and a jolt of pure, unadulterated adrenaline shot through me. Oh, this was going to be fun.
The Anthem
The opening lines are quiet, almost conversational. A list of grievances delivered in a deceptively calm voice. I sang them looking out at the crowd, making eye contact with Maria, with Chloe, with Doug. I wasn’t singing to an ex-lover. I was singing to every smirking gatekeeper, every condescending man-bun, every person who ever made me feel like a “vibe-killer.”
“I want you to know, that I’m happy for you…”
The energy in the room began to shift. It wasn’t just a performance; it was a proclamation. People were leaning forward in their seats, a collective sense of recognition dawning on their faces. They felt it too. They understood.
Then, the pre-chorus hit, the music building, the anger starting to bubble to the surface.
“And I’m here, to remind you / Of the mess you left when you went away…”
My voice, usually reserved for conference calls and reminding my son to do his laundry, found a power I had forgotten it had. It was raw, it was real, and it was getting louder. The drummer on the backing track kicked in, and the song exploded into the furious, iconic chorus.
I let it rip.
“And you oughta know!”
I wasn’t just singing the words; I was testifying. I unleashed all the frustration from the weeks of being ignored, the humiliation of being mocked, the slow-burning rage of injustice. I poured it all into the microphone.
And the room gave it right back to me.
By the second chorus, people were on their feet. They were singing along, punching the air. The nurses were standing on their chairs. Doug was clapping on the off-beat, a huge grin on his face. They weren’t just my audience; they were my backup singers, my co-conspirators. We were all in on the joke, and the punchline was glorious. It was more than karaoke. It was a full-blown catharsis, a primal scream set to a 90s rock track.
I hit the final, furious crescendo, my voice cracking with emotion and exertion, holding the last note until my lungs burned.
The song ended. For a split second, there was silence.
Then, the room erupted.
The Encore
The applause was deafening. It wasn’t just polite clapping; it was stomping, cheering, whistling. It was a roar of approval, a wave of sound that washed over me on the stage. I stood there, breathless, clutching the microphone, a giddy, triumphant smile plastered on my face.
Maria and Chloe were at the edge of the stage, their faces glowing with pride. Frank was giving me two thumbs up from behind the bar.
Then, a voice from the back of the room started it.
“Rhea! Rhea! Rhea!”
Another voice joined in, then another, and another. Soon, the entire bar was chanting my name. My name. Not “mom.” Not “hon.” Not some anonymous wine-drinker killing the vibe. Rhea.
It was the most wonderfully, beautifully petty thing I had ever experienced. This wasn’t a multi-million dollar project landing on time and under budget. This was a tiny, insignificant corner of the world where fairness had been trampled, and I had, through sheer stubbornness and a well-organized folder of evidence, set it right.
I gave a final, theatrical bow and walked off the stage, my heart hammering in my chest. I slid back into our booth, the cracked red vinyl feeling like a throne.
Maria handed me a fresh glass of chardonnay. “To the queen,” she toasted, raising her margarita.
“To the new system,” Chloe added, clinking her glass against ours.
I took a long, satisfying sip. The wine tasted crisp and cold and exactly like victory. Across the room, Sarah the new KJ called up the next singer. Number five. Maria. She bounced up to the stage to sing her Gloria Estefan song. The queue on the big screen updated. My name was gone, her name was highlighted, and the list moved on. Just like it was supposed to. It was perfect.
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