I post an anecdote that may or may not be true. You guess which it is, based on your knowledge of me and my curious ways. Whoever gets it right gets a point when the contest closes. There's a lot to this one, but it's an all or nothing. All true or all bullshit. Here we go:

The Haircut, New Year’s Eve & John Madden

As is my way, I waited until the day before New Year’s Eve to get a haircut. After the last debacle, I decide that I am willing to pay an exorbitant price for a haircut, so long as my vain ass looks good. The problem was, at the last minute no one would take me.

I was forced to go to Stupid Cuts, or whatever the name of the place is. So I walk in and they bring me back to the chair I immediately realize I have a problem. I have this wacky habit of inspecting the person’s cosmetology license while they're cutting my hair. You know, the thing they have to tape up in the corner of the mirror? Maybe it’s a state law, I don’t know. Anyway, there is no license there when I look. Just a receipt taped up in it’s place that says, “Receipt for Application.” I think I was the first customer the woman ever had outside of barber college. Seriously.

By the time I left the place I looked like a real asshole. A real asshole that just joined the military. It was the worst haircut of my life. When I got home I actually had to get out the scissors and try to fix it by cutting all the really obvious mistakes.

I wasn’t a happy man. My wife made things much worse by laughing at me. Well, not exactly laughing at me, but not telling me how good I looked either. She knew I was sensitive about it, yet she just kind of smirked.

“When you put a suit on you’ll look like one of the joint chiefs,” she said unconvincingly.

“I’m going to look like fucking Private Gomer Pyle!”

So New Year’s Eve comes along and I know I look like a dick, but we left a hefty deposit at a restaurant and our friends are expecting us. They neither laughed, nor mentioned the haircut. After several drinks, I actually forgot about the haircut. I was having a good time. They had a big band and I was doing the foxtrot. I was suave. I was debonair. I was James Bond in a Savile Row tux.

Back to my old self and feeling confident, I went for a pee. I was washing my hands and when I finished I looked up and saw myself in the mirror. It all came rushing back. I looked like a fucking idiot. I marched back to the table.

“Why haven’t you people mentioned this haircut?”

They stared at me. Blank expressions.

“We’re all adults here. Why haven’t you mentioned the haircut?”

“Well, it is kind of short—for you I mean—but it looks good.”

“Let’s just get this all out in the open,” I said. “I look like a fucking idiot. I look like Gomer Pyle!”

“You don’t look anything like Gomer Pyle. Why do keep saying that? He looks like an idiot. You just happen to have short hair. There’s no fucking resemblance!

Meanwhile, I needed another drink and the waiters were running around helter skelter. It was complete chaos. The affair was open bar and for the incredibly high price we paid, people were trying to get the most out of it.

For New Year’s they had brought in a bunch of waiters just to run drink orders to the tables. The problem was none of the waiters spoke English.

The first drink waiter to our table was Polish. He took the order and I bet my friends that we would either never see him again or we would all get the wrong drinks. Ten minutes later there was no sign of him. I called the food waiter over. He was French but spoke excellent English. Even better, I knew him from coming in the place regularly.

“Henri, do me a favor. These drink runners are from the fucking Eastern bloc. We’re dying over here.”

“I know Mr. -----, it is a problem for me too!”

I slipped a twenty into his pocket. “Find me an American or somebody that savees a goddamned romance language. An Italian, a Spaniard, a Frenchman…we can even get by with a German if you've got one, just get somebody over here while we’re young.”

Two minutes later a confused looking Italian guy showed up. He barely looked old enough to drink.

“I canna helpa you drink!”

I took out another twenty, showed it to him, and slipped it carefully into his jacket pocket. He smiled. I ran down a list of drinks we wanted for the table and told him to keep the fucking things coming until we said stop. I ran through it once in Italian, and once again in English.

“Capice?”

He was smiling from ear to ear.

Meanwhile, my friend was tapping me on the shoulder and pointing.

“That looks like John Madden! I think it’s fucking John Madden!”

I looked over my shoulder and there was a big fat guy chowing down on a plate of shrimp. His suit didn’t fit too well.

“That’s not John Madden, it’s just some big fat dude.”

“I guess you’re right. Look at those cauliflower ears.”

Meanwhile the new guy was back with our drinks. Excellent service.

“Thanks, chief!” I said.

“My name is a Edonza,” he said.

“What?’

“Elioquanza.”

I speak Italian and I still didn’t know what the fuck he was saying.

“I’ll just call you Sergeant Carter. Would that be okay?”

“You wanta quarter?”

He’d obviously never seen Gomer Pyle.

“Carter! I’ll call you Carter!”

He was still smiling so I smiled back and waved him off.

The rest of the night whenever I saw our guy and we needed anything I’d call out, “Sergeant Carter! Sergeant Carter!”

It turned a lot of heads.

Meanwhile, my friend was now out of his seat and headed toward Madden with his camera. Both of us knew it wasn’t John Madden by this time, but my friend likes a good joke and he figures once we have a picture we’ll be saying Hey, remember this guy for the next ten years. Only what my friend didn’t count on was fucking Sergeant Carter.

Carter grabs the camera from my friend and announces he’ll take a picture of the two of them. Carter had assumed my friend knew the heavy man. The fat guy, however, was at a loss. There was Carter with the camera telling my friend and the John Madden look-alike to get closer together for the picture. The Madden guy was definitely buzzed and before he knew what was happening my friend put his arm around him and Carter took the picture.

Now Madden starts to realize what’s going on, and being confused with Madden isn’t really a compliment if you think about it and he starts giving my friend a dirty look. I could see it was about to get nasty, so I went over there and started speaking to my buddy in French, which he neither speaks nor understands. It had the desired effect and confused the fat guy and I put my arm around my friend and walked him away. Madden was really pissed, though, and was muttering something at us I couldn’t quite hear. We went to get the camera back from Carter.

By then it was just about midnight. I looked at my watch and there was about ten minutes to go. Then all of a sudden the band stopped playing and the guy starts counting down,”…5…4…3…2…1…Happy New Year!”

They started playing Auld Lang Syne. I was confused, but my wife was fucking furious. “Where’s the champagne! I don’t even have a glass of Champagne!”

I checked my watch and I see it’s still like five minutes to Midnight. The fucking band used their own watches instead of a TV or something reliable. A minute later I grabbed Henri and asked what was going on.

“These idiots were ten minutes off! I’m sorry Mr. ---.”

“It’s okay Henri, we don’t care. Just bring us the math, we’ve got another affair after this one.”

So Henri brings us the check and Carter shows up with a bottle of pretty good champagne…not the stuff they were pouring for the house.

“This one is for free! It’s from Mr. Henri!”

So Carter pours five glasses instead of four and he helps us slam the bottle in about thirty seconds.

“Carter, my friend, I need a favor.”

“Sure, boss.”

“I want you to bring that guy four pink squirrels.” I pointed towards John Madden. He was looking outraged about something.

“Pretty girls?”

“Pink squirrels! They’re cocktails…” I couldn’t think of how to say it in Italian.

“Colore rosa…ratto”

“A pink rat?”

“Yeah, trust me, the bartender’ll know what you mean. Just wait until we get out of here. And tell him they’re compliments of the Frito Lay Company.”

“I don’t understand…”

“Don’t worry about it. Quattro rosa ratto. Tell him they’re from us.”

And with that we moved on.