My One and Only Chance at Soloist

One part of adapting to France is adapting to an altogether new set of church songs. Sure, some of the songs are translations of our English favorites--The Heart of Worship, Before the Throne, In Christ Alone--, but there are quite a few completely new French praise songs.
This Sunday, I was playing in the worship band. Generally, "worship band" consists of me and a guitarist or pianist. But today, the whole world put in an appearance. We had two flutes, a cello, a violin, a classical guitar, regular guitar, piano, drums, and probably someone else that I'm forgetting. But sadly, despite the good attendance, we could not keep ourselves together had our lives depended on it.
Anyway, we somehow managed to stumble through our first four songs in relative harmony (by that, I mean, we at least managed to be playing the same song at the same time) until it was time to play "Tu n'as pas attendu"-- a song I'd never heard before. I'd practiced at home, worked out some basic harmony on the song, and thought, 'Oh, it'll be fine. I'll just follow everyone else.'
The cello and violin were supposed to be playing the introduction to the song, but the violinist had a sudden bout of something (stage fright? sickness?) and ran out of the church. So, the pianist who was leading our ramshackle band of non-musicians whispered, "Flutes. You've got the introduction."
The flutist next to me said, "I don't know this song. I guess it's a solo for you."
My knees almost buckled.
I couldn't think of a French response fast enough to tell her that, the very fact she was French and I was not ensured that she knew the song better than me. Also, a microphone in front of your face discourages any real argument, so I just raised my flute and started playing something. I had the rhythm completely wrong. I don't know if I even looked at the key signature first, and out of the corner of my eye, I could see people looking around like, "Is she playing Tu n'as pas attendu?"
But somehow it came together, and somehow, when it was over, I managed to pull together whatever dignity I had left and walk to the bus station. And somehow I made it home.
But now, critic that I am, all I can think about is my disappointing one and only appearance as the flute soloist at Noisy le Grand.

Moral or the story: I should have practiced more in high school.