I come to you today with a very important message, or maybe more correctly, a plea. A plea to all you hard-partying types to think before you do something stupid that could very easily ruin the evening of your fellow party-goers.

I know. I know. You're all thinking: I am a Penn State student, I always limit my consumption to between zero and four drinks when I choose to party, but alas, that is not the issue that I'm here to discuss.

Nearly everyone has been in this sort of situation. You're standing there sipping your "whatever keg was cheapest" beer from that lovely red plastic Solo cup when an ungodly racket begins to pervade the room.

"Who on earth would want to skin a live cat at a party?" you think to yourself as you begin to scan the room for the source of the racket.

Your eyes search the room as you crane your neck. The blood begins dripping out of your ears and you just hope that it doesn't stain that new whatever-store-is-trendy-this-week shirt.

Then you spot them: The group of people screaming the lyrics to whatever song is playing, gesturing wildly, screaming intermittently and apparently having the time of their lives.

You know who these people are. They're at every party. They're normally women, but let's be honest now, neither sex is entirely free from guilt in this matter. These people stand there wailing away in voices that make Biz Markie and Tom Waits look like the smoothest crooners in the world.

It's not like the music at parties isn't bad enough to begin with, yet these traveling troupes of "singers" make me long for Nelly and 50 Cent.

At a recent party, a moving rendition of "The Gambler" let me know when to run, but as soon as I got across the street I was greeted by the off-key wailing still emanating from the apartment building. Across the street! Are you kidding me? It's inescapable.

As soon as this "singing" commences, you can just wave goodbye to the ability to hold any sort of conversation aside from "DO YOU WANT TO GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE???"

But aside from that, do these people really think that they're making the party atmosphere better? Is this just party ambience?

There can't possibly be enough alcohol in the world to make these people think they sound good. The only fun I get out of these singers (aside from writing this column, of course) comes in the form of imagining what American Idol's Simon Cowell would say to these people. "Truly dreadful, just absolutely incredibly, amazingly horrible. You could be our secret weapon against Iraq. One bar from you and anyone would get out of the country."

So the next time you find yourself half in the bag at a party and that song you've always loved to sing comes on remember: no singing. Just think of the harm you're causing to the other people in the room, not to mention the harm you're causing to the song.