PAM/TIM

Okay, so this past weekend I went to Paris, TX to be in the wedding of my friends Jaime and Stephanie. Wonderful wedding. Great reception. And at lunch the day of the wedding I had this piece of peanut butter pie that altered the course of my life as I currently know it. But things were not always this good. Oh no my friends. Before the beautiful wedding, the endless plates of fried chicken at the reception and the religious experience with the pie there was a little thing I'm calling the incident.

During the day of the wedding Jaime decided to have all the guys go down to a local barber shop on the square in Paris for a good old fashioned shave. Sounds like a good idea, right? So we go in and first of all imagine the reception 8 20 something guys from the city get when they stroll into the local barbershop in Paris. Exactly. Not so much of a warm welcome and lots of stares. So there is an old man at the first chair who seems to be the head barber and then at the back there was a younger and much stranger looking man. The strange man's chair was open so Jaime headed on back for his shave. I found the man to be a little abrupt and rude when Jaime sat down but just laughed (on the inside as not to attract anymore stares). The head barber finished with his customer and our next guy sat down in his chair. I was a little unsure as to whether or not I should get a shave myself and I got to thinking that since I had not shaved that morning I would have to shave in the afternoon without taking a shower and that is a fine formula for some serious razor burn. I figured the barber would be the best bet and what's $6 when to have a strange man touch your face right?

So I'm up and the weird man's chair is open. I hop up there, ask for a shave, close my eyes and let the action begin. Fast forward to 10 minutes later. I hope out of the chair. Pay my $6. Give him a $1 tip and then look into the mirror. What I saw next will haunt me until the day I die. It was like the guy took the razor and just slit my throat. There was a fair amount of blood. Razor burn over my entire next and on top of that I was turning yellow from the powder they use the help stop the bleeding. I cannot express to you the depth of my immediate depression. I sat back down on the bench and didn't say a word. Slowly the other guys began to notice my misfortune. My friend Adam had to leave the shop because he was laughing so hard. During my silence I started thinking about some things that had happened and tried to figure out what went wrong. One of the ministers for the wedding came in as Jaime was finishing up and naturally referred to the barber as a "he" but for some reason when I was in the chair there were people in the shop calling the barber "Pam" and everytime the barber moved around to the other side I thought to myself, "where those boobs that just hit me?". And let me tell you something else. When your entire neck is raw and the flesh is exposed, aftershave really really hurts. So bad that you may almost scream.

So later that night some of us were asking the bride's father about this person in the barber shop. Turns out that Pam usually goes by Tim as she apparently plays the male role in her lesbian relationship. It seems that Pam/Tim as she is now referred to as either doesn't know how to shave a man's face or was really not happy with our little party. I'm leaning towards the latter a guy who was a friend of hers came in after me and left with a perfectly shaven face. No blood, no razor burn. Just a satisfied customer. Talk about a serious case of buyer's remorse.

So Pam/Tim, wherever you are tonight, I'm giving notice that from now on I will be shaving my own face ... that is if the skin ever grows back ... and I will never again give you or anyone else money to cut my face open. Thank you for teaching me a valuable lesson and know that I will never come near you or your barber shop chair again so long as I live.

KIRBY

On Monday afternoon Kirby Puckett passed away at the age of 45. For those of you who do not know, he wore #34 for the Minnesota Twins when I was a kid. He helped lead them to two World Series championships and was one of the great players and great men of his generation. Our fathers celebrated guys like Mickey Mantle and Ted Williams because these were the guys who embodied all that baseball was when they were kids. They collected their baseball cards, watched them play on t.v. and wanted to be like them when they grew up. For all that men like Mantle and Williams meant to our fathers' generation in life, they mean even more now that they are gone. I grew up with players like Cal Ripken Jr. and Kirby Puckett. Puckett, who was always a little pudgy and obviously not the best pure athlete on his team, was always known for his drive, determination, kind heart and ability to lead his baseball team. He always smiled and I always knew he enjoyed every minute he spent on the baseball field. He played for the purity of the game and for the fans. He grew up on the south side of Chicago ... in Whitesox country. He was a Whitesox fan and would have loved to have played for his hometown team. However, after playing at a small local college, he was drafted by the Minnesota Twins. This was a team he came to love and he cherished the fans that loved him with as much affection as he showed for the game of baseball. Countless times in his career he was offered contracts to play for a large market team like the Yankees and even his hometown Whitesox. But Puckett loved the fans he played for in Minnesota and finished his great career with the team he began it with.

Kirby Puckett does not have the numbers that guys like Mantle and Williams had, but as time passes I think those of my generation will look on him with the same nostalgia and affection that those before us see in other great players who have played this great game. So here's to everything that is great and pure about baseball and here's to Kirby. We'll miss you.