Dear Christina Aguilera....

.....today was a day you will probably never forget. And I know you expected that when you were invited to sing the National Anthem for the Super Bowl.

But things didn't go so smoothly today and, well, you messed up the words.
To the National Anthem.
At a very "America is Awesome" sort of event.

I open my Facebook page and there are tons of people who are really mad.
And they are mad at you.

I just wanted to say: I am so sorry this happened to you.
And I'd want to hug you if I didn't think that I might crush you because you are such a tiny person.

The house I watched the game in was full of people who really had a lot of grace for you. We get it. It is a HUGE event, sometimes your brain is concentrating on the run of notes instead of the words.

And at least you sang words that were already IN the song. I mean, instead of "...o'er the ramparts we watched..." you sang "...what so proudly we watched...." and I am cool with that.

It's better than,
"Ben Roeth-lis-berrrrrrger is a skeeze...." or

"..."this year's aaaaaaads had better be goooood..." or

"...David should taaaaaaaake Bethany on a cruise...."
(Well that last one wouldn't be so bad.)

You responded to all the reporting with, "I can only hope that everyone could feel my love for this country and that the true spirit of its anthem still came through." And that seems classy. I hope you keep it classy. I think I have the grace to offer because, well, I've been there.

It wasn't the Super Bowl. Or the National Anthem. But it was my first solo in front of my new super-hot-boyfriend's family and they were sitting right up front where the spotlight spilled over onto them. I sang my solo, and I kept singing and I.....forgot the words. I made things up, words were substituted that may or may not have made sense and my back up singers weren't sure what to do. But buy the time the choir had to sing with me, I recovered. I finished my solo and longed for a nice cold shower to recover from the cold sweat I'd broken into.

So, Christina, ignore those who give you grief. You made a mistake. But you maintained your poise and you continued on. You didn't make a fool out of America and I doubt that you are a communist. Stay strong and maybe just study up a little more next time you have a beloved anthem to sing in front of millions of people. And maybe a nice USO tour wouldn't be such a bad idea.