It never fails

Okay, so today, I'm on the bench during the semi-final game of the hockey tournament that my Major Bantam AA team is at (we lost the game 4-2). I'm looking like a total crappy greaseball because last night, I stayed at the assistant coach's cottage near Smiths Falls, and didn't shower this morning. I'm one of those people who should never go out in public without showering or at least washing my hair -- terrible greasy bedhead that cannot be fixed with just water and a comb. Thank gawd for Ontario's no-public-smoking law. If anyone in the Bell Sensplex had lit a match, my head would have burst into a fireball.

So anyway, at the end of the game, a guy bangs on the glass behind the bench, and makes signs to me that I don't understand. I shrug, and he makes the finger-going-in-a-circular-motion-beside-the-head sign, so I think he's saying the referee is crazy (which he is).

Then when I leave the bench, this guy says "You don't recognize me, do you? We grew up together, as backyard neighbours. I'm Dino." It turns out that the crazy sign actually meant "think back". I haven't seen Dino in, I figure, 25 years. He's a tall, slim, good-looking Italian guy, but was a porker as a kid. It turns out he has seven-year-old twin boys who were on the ice for a hockey development clinic, right after our game. Dino's dad was with him, too.

So I can imagine Dino telling his three brothers about meeting me, and what a grubby greaseball I am. The four boys own a chain of barber shops and hair salons across Ottawa, so they know "grubby greaseball". PLUS, one of Dino's older brothers, Tony, is married to my stepsister. So he's going to tell Tony what a slob his stepbrother-in-law is. Hopefully, Tony will point out that I'm not usually that way, and was probably having a bad hair day (understatement).

Anyone else have any "It never fails" stories of embarrassment? I have a few others, like the time I was at a house party, in the era of the no arms, no legs jokes. After a few brown pops, I'm sitting on a couch with a lampshade on my head, telling said jokes. Okay, so I wasn't wearing a lampshade, but I very easily could have been. So I tell the one about the girl with one short leg: Eileen. And then at the instant, the loud music stops just long enough for me to blurt out: "And the Chinese girl with one leg shorter than the other? Irene," Sure enough, sitting directly across the room is a nice-looking Asian girl, who hadn't been there when the music was loud -- honest!

So share your similar stories. Meanwhile, I have an urgent date with my shower and my very special guest, Johnson Baby Shampoo.

See? I'm not usually Greaseball Gus: