A couple of weeks ago, my wife and I went to a party where the host really put on the dog. There were crabs flown in from Maryland; there were lobsters; there was a margarita machine. There was even a karaoke guy set up in the back yard so margarita-plied guests could publicly humiliate themselves.

At first, of course, people avoided the karaoke guy like he was a bubonic plague salesman -- but as the evening wore on, they sidled up closer and closer, and soon, folks I'd seen only walking their dogs or fixing their fences were up there, for better or worse, belting out their favorite songs for all they were worth.

As the sounds of amplified amateurs bounced throughout the neighborhood, I glanced at nearby houses, wondering what the people inside were thinking.

When I was in high school, I'm not sure I ever attended a party that didn't get broken up. Word of a party usually started with the in crowd, consisting of the football players, cheerleaders and class leaders, then filtered down through the ranks of the less popular kids. By the time word reached me -- three or four rungs further down on the social pecking order, just above the kids with pocket protectors and suspenders -- the party was already well under way.

Most nights, within minutes of my arrival, the party would be surrounded by flashing police lights, with big officers pointing their flashlights around and getting kids' names and phone numbers so parents could be called.

I began to wonder whether I was the reason the parties were being broken up, whether the cops were actually following me around. The local police force seemed to have made it its mission to make sure I made it through my formative years without ever having any formative experiences.

One of the reasons for my being so far down on the social ladder, of course, might have been my near-psychological-disorder obsession with Bruce Springsteen. I memorized every single line of every single song, tried to dress like "the boss" and imitated his gruff voice.

I didn't just like his music -- I wanted to be him. While half the kids I knew wore braces, I walked around throughout high school pushing out my lower jaw till it hurt, trying to imitate his pronounced underbite. (Try it at home in front of a mirror and you'll instantly realize why I was so far down the invitation list.)

At the recent party, after listening to neighbors belt out everything from Frank Sinatra to Shania Twain, I decided to try my hand at it. I picked "Rosalita," one of my favorite Springsteen songs and one I'd belted out so many times in my car that I knew every grunt and shout by heart.

It's often been said that while everyone likes to talk, no one likes the sound of his own voice. If you hear yourself on a tape or watch yourself in home videos, you usually cringe when your voice comes through the speakers.

Karaoke is that same feeling, but on steroids. What sounds pretty good in the confines of your own car can be painful and awkward when blasted out to a group of people you're gonna have to see again. My performance "in the style of" Springsteen would last only 3 1/2 minutes but will haunt my nightmares for months.

As I stepped down from the stage, thankful my short, painful moment in the spotlight was over, I accepted the congratulations of people who were just glad it hadn't been them up there.

My wife, who has suffered through my singing in the car for years, smiled weakly. Far too wise to ever sing in public, she looked as if she wanted to collect her casserole dish and climb through the hedges to get away.

A couple of minutes later, I noticed a crowd at the far end of the lawn. As I got closer, I realized they were all talking to a policeman. The neighbors, it seemed, had finally had enough and had called the cops. If we didn't shut off the karaoke, the officer said, he was shutting the party down.

I couldn't help but wonder, as I watched the karaoke guy turn off his lights and unplug his amplifiers, if it was me, again, that had ruined the party with my off-key Springsteen imitation.

I pulled in my jutting lower jaw and went to help my wife round up her casserole dish.