By Ken Rickard
Advertiser Columnist

As I was dashing out of the apartment, late for work as usual, a familiar tune was playing on the radio.

It wasn't one of those upbeat, head-bopping tunes, but a sappy ballad that brought back an old memory. It got stuck in my head.

So there I was, in the elevator — a short ride in my own private karaoke room. Enough time to belt out a chorus of the song that had me misty just minutes earlier:

"And now I come to you with oooopen aaaaarms ..."

The elevator stopped on the second floor. I hoped that no one was there. Who takes the elevator from the second floor?

Apparently this lady does.

"Hi," she said half-heartedly as she walked in.

Maybe she didn't hear me.

"Um, were you just singing?"

Caught.

All guys do it. There is always a song that gets to us. And no one else will understand why.

It usually reminds us of a time long past (read: a girl), and we will stop and listen. And hum its tune. And in certain situations, sing along.

Loudly.

Ladies, dig deeply into our CD collections and you'll find our dark little secrets.

Amid the Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots and Nirvana hides a Milli Vanilli disc because we blame it on the rain.

Lurking within the jewel cases of Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, and Kotch resides some Poison because every rose has a thorn.

Hiding out with the Kiss, Eagles and Metallica tapes is a Christopher Cross single because we're caught between the moon and New York City.

These are the last pieces of proof that we've had other relationships. All the pictures have been burned and the letters have been torn to shreds, because we take breakups harder than we let on.

Even though we say "I was gonna dump her anyway," we are really thinking, "I was gonna dump her anyway."

OK, that's a bad example, but I won't get into that.

Billy Ocean sang it best when he belted out, "There'll be sad songs that make you cry. Love songs often do." And they are often bad songs, too.

Have you ever prodded a guy at a karaoke bar to sing something? They resist for a while, but after a few beers and a shot they are belting out Extreme's "More Than Words" with the best of them. They've done it hundreds of times since the senior prom.

(Well, maybe not with the best of them, but at least to the best of their ability. I believe that if you break down the word karaoke, you get kara meaning sing, while oke means drunkenly.)

In the end, our secrets are hardly that, because we always get caught.

It may be in Sears, muttering the words to Jack Wagner's "All I Need" under our breath with the accompanying muzak.

Or at the stop light with the windows down in the middle of a fist-clenching rendition of "Please Don't Go Girl" by New Kids On The Block.

As for me, I have more than one dirty little secret in my CD collection, and I'm not proud of it.

How else can I explain that copy of Air Supply?

It's because I'm all out of love.

Reach Ken Rickard at krickard@honoluluadvertiser.com.