Christmas Inebriation

Every year I come up with a Christmas party manifesto that I repeat time after time to anxious young coworkers. It goes something like this: 1) Don’t discuss work with management 2) Don’t sleep with the girl from the team upstairs 3) Take advantage of the free beer, but don’t get drunk until the afterparty, thereby avoiding any inebriated antics displayed in front of management. And every year I ignore this, and get extremely trashed and spend the next day dazedly discussing the previous night’s events. Perhaps the most dangerous place to have a company party is at the karaoke bar. The combination of alcohol and pop singing can actually only lead to embarrassing events – it’s not possible to remain respectable. Last night’s events took place at club Meloun, a slightly posh cellar bar with a gigantic karaoke stage and dance floor. There was catering and free beer, a combination that I can never disagree with. When we arrived there was an array of breads and salad laid out on a table, at the end of which I inquired upon the whereabouts of the meat dishes. The general response was that ‘this is it’. I disappointedly grabbed a beer and took a seat at a table of 8 guys (my talent at these kind of parties is constantly finding myself with all the guys who are going to drink 10 beers and then rub each others heads and tell fart jokes and generally male-bond. The Portugeese guys ignore this and head for the female tables like heat-seeking missiles. Those guys are like the anti-nick.) After we had taken a seat, a rumour reached my ears that there was meat being served somewhere. I investigated, and came back to the table with a big pile of rice and goulash. Everyone stared at me, and then eight guys rose in conjunction and ran for the food. The vegetarian crap was discarded on the way. The drinking began in earnest after that. There was the slightly awkward moment when one guy got up to do the first song. He wasn’t drunk enough to have fun with the song, and actually tried to sing his way through an eighties power ballad. We weren’t drunk enough to enjoy it yet, and just tried to avoid catching the gaze of anyone else so we wouldn’t start convulsing with laughter. But soon enough I was on stage yelling my way through ‘Strangers in the Night’ while the dance floor emptied. I to have skill…. My roommate was like a kid in a candy store. As a single French man he has few problems attracting women. I often find myself directing him to the best available, and blocking those who think they can take advantage of the drunken surrender monkey. I usually interrupt these intimate conversations by loudly barking at the Frenchman in guttural tones, smiling, laughing, toasting, sometimes spilling beer on the girl, and generally ruining the mood. And no one can ruin the mood like a loud, drunk, uncoordinated nick. Luckily the Frenchman appreciates this, and shows his gratitude by giving me even more to drink. At one point we were on stage to sing something, and because we had a beer in both hands we found ourselves unable to hold the microphone. Good times. There was definitely a lot more sexual tension on the dance floor. Around 2am everyone moseyed up to the girl sitting at the next table over and found themselves swaying to a Slovak guy singing an off-key rendition of Robbie Williams’ ‘Angels’. I discovered, to my surprise, that I had managed to dance with 6 girls, as well as my 6’4’’ German boss. Luckily I seem to have managed to avoid saying anything too awful, and everyone last night seemed to have enjoyed me. I adopted the George Costanza method of conversation last night. I would jump from table to table, joining in whatever conversation was going on. Eventually I would tell a joke that would cause much hysterics, as I often do. At that point I would get up without saying anything else and walk over to the next table. This way everyone has the impression that I’m the funniest man in the room. And I avoid getting too comfortable and making that unfunny joke that leaves people shaking their heads in shame for me. The party started at 6:30 or so, and I left around 3am. The free beer stopped at some point, and I’m afraid to look into my wallet. I woke up around 12 today and promply found myself researching what I had eaten the night before as I put it into the toilet with gusto. I managed to come to work late, even though I start at 2 in the afternoon. This caused general laughter in my area of the office. I blew out my voice trying to sing ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, and found my voice in a gravelly state of hangover. By the way, Bohemian Rhapsody is completely unsingable. I just screamed the words out loudly and found that I couldn’t talk afterwards. Whatever, fine with me.