Support Our Troops

Last night I decided to celebrate my freedom from British tyranny a little early by heading up to Misawa, home to a large American Air Force base. Misawa is well known in the JET community for its English-friendly bars and restaurants as well as the base itself, which promises, among other things, a Taco Bell for those civilians lucky enough to get inside.

Our night started out innocently enough with a trip to the Global Kitchen, where I had the closest thing I've had to enchiladas (or any Mexican food, for that matter) since my last trip to the fabled Los Mariachi's. However, the night soon took a turn for the worst as we found ourselves wandering six-deep into a G.I. bar on the main drag. Stories abounded of Misawa local Megan having been mistaken for an actual Japanese person and being yelled at to take off her pants by the defenders of freedom, so I would be lying if I said that our intentions were pure from the get-go. Upon entering the bar, we were greeted by a karaoke rendition of Radiohead's "Creep" being sung by two servicemen. To say that it was bad would be an understatement, to say that they weren't even singing anything remotely close to the vocal melody would be more accurate and to say that it made me wish for the sweet release of death would give you a better idea. Well, both Ryan and myself take matters involving Radiohead pretty seriously and we weren't about to let this sacrilege go unpunished. So immediately afterward, Ryan put "Creep" back on and we decided to show them how it's done.

Now, Ryan actually bats for both teams and I don't really carry myself like the most heterosexual guy in the universe, so I shouldn't have to tell you the types of taunts we received up there while struggling to do our best to keep up with Thom Yorke's eunuch-like capabilities. As much as I'd like to tell you that all American military personnel are glorified frat boys with machine guns, there were a few cool people there who cheered us on and invited us to sing with them. However, unless most of those guys were actually British and simply liked talking about cigarettes loudly, they didn't really seem to enjoy our performance. So of course, this only steeled our resolve to sing more songs and continue baiting them. As I recall the last song ended with us yelling taunts back at them into the microphone before turning tail and running out of the bar with our lives intact. Never forget.