Payback for a Diamond of a concert

It’s Fri 28 Nov, the day after Thanksgiving, which means two things. I didn’t get up at 3:30 a.m. to stand in line for two-and-a-half hours to buy the latest thing-um-a-which only to find out that the store only had three in stock and those were gone ten seconds after opening and the insanely low price advertised in the paper was only to get me to walk through the door to buy something else.

Oh yeah, and it’s big Sis’s birthday. They held a big parade for her yesterday in N.Y. City with a bunch of big balloons. No doubt Birmingham will be rocking tonight. The city will be forced into paying hundreds of thousands of dollars of overtime to police to control the crowds following her to and fro from one Birmingham hot spot to the next.

Actually, It is a sad story. She is probably being forced into working overtime today by her heavy handed boss - the nefarious Mr. Scrooge McBidner. It seems Sis made a rather bad investment with some of Mr. Scrooge McBidner’s money. She drove 10 hours (well 8 ½ for Mz. Leadfoot) - each way – from Birmingham to Columbus, OH with #1 son and grandson to see – get this – Neal Diamond in concert.

So she puts tons of wear and tear on Mr. McBidner’s fine automobile paying in excess of $3 a gallon for gas to see this “concert,” and the tickets weren't cheap either. Well, Mr. Diamond comes out singing “Cracklen’ Rose.” Yeah it’s Neal all right. There's no doubt about it. But why does he sound like Muppet star Oscar the Grouch? Apparently, at some point during the show Mr. Diamond’s voice did improved to the point where he only sounded as bad as Fozy Bear before closing the show - talk about something to be thankful for - with “Coming to America” in the styling of Rosanne Barr.

Mr. Diamond, always the gentleman, refunded the show price – minus handling fees for the tickets, travel expenses, therapy fees for hard-core Diamond fans still trying to explain this thing away and two-and-a-half-hours of people’s lives that they will never be able to get back.

The boss was not happy with dumping good money that could have gone toward a new set headers for the Vette on a bad Neal Diamond concert – or for that matter, hell let’s admit it, a good Neal Diamond concert. So now sadly, on her birthday, Sis has to pay the piper. Drive by late tonight and see if you can catch her through the window balancing the books by the light of a single candle while the scratchy Neal Diamond album (Alas, poor Sis’s i-Pod had to be auctioned on E-bay to off-set some of the “concert” expenses) skips over and over “sweeeet Car-o-line” in the background.

Happy birthday.