Pour yourself some more sake.
Reapply your lip gloss.
Begin aggressive self-flagellation for choosing a bad karaoke song. Did you really need to pick something with an eight-minute lyricless guitar solo?
Ruminate on how, after two years at this job, you were finally starting to fit in among your co-workers, but now you’ve definitely, definitely blown it.
Make eye contact with every single person in the room while smiling and shrugging, signalling that this wasn’t your intent.
While locking eyes with each individual, determine who seems the angriest so that you can try to get him or her fired later.
In fact, why not get them all fired? Bury the evidence that this ever happened. Yeah. That’s a good idea.
If everyone is politely nodding along now, assume that it’s because they’ve permanently labelled you the office fool who always makes bad decisions.
Blame Steve. Jocelyn held onto the songbook for too long, and, when she passed it to you, Steve was already breathing down your neck, yelling at you to choose so that he could have his moment in the sun with “Sweet Caroline.” Jesus, Steve. Why not choose the world’s most predictable song? And everyone will probably have a great time singing along to “Sweet Caroline,” too, because even though it’s basic as hell, it has lyrics. A crucial feature for a karaoke song.
Try to salvage the moment by going to the front of the room and making people laugh with your fun dances.
Uh-oh. No one’s even watching your dumb dance. They’re all on their phones. Probably texting their real friends about how bad you are at karaoke. You’re a fool. A fool, and now also a clown.
Sit back down and try to determine what temporary insanity overcame you when you selected this song. Wonder whether this is the same form of insanity that leads people to commit gruesome murders. Decide it must be.
Spiral into a depression that will last for weeks and take you thousands of dollars in therapy to move on from. Brace yourself for sleepless nights spent ruminating on this horrible mistake.
Go pee.
