Harvey Haircut Was a Bullfrog

Harvey Haircut (not his real name) was an occasional friend of mine. We worked together in Memphis and hung out, drinking beer a bit, but I say he was an occasional friend because he was always getting mad at me or someone else and storming off. He was kind of a bitch. 

The thing with Harvey was that, though southern, he was extremely hard to understand. If you've ever seen the TV cartoon, "King of the Hill", he was like the character, "Boomhower" whose mouth was so marbled, people could only guess what he was saying or hope to catch a reasonably clear phrase so that they might get the jist of it. At first, I thought it was my Yankee ears, but none of the locals understood him much either. Company-wide, it was just kind of accepted, just like Boomhower on KOTH. 

Actually, his name was Harry Hargett. We were signing in to do some work at LeBonheur Children's Hospital one day and the woman giving us our work badges looks at the sign-in sheet and says, "Harry Hargett? I thought your name was "Harry Haggard". And I chimed in, "I thought your name was Harvey Haircut! Who are you??" I think Kip was there too and he was busting up and added his own take on what Harry's name might be, but I can't remember what Kipper said. It was funny though. Everybody was laughing- except Harry- or Harvey- whatever the fvck his name was- and he might have been blushing in embarrassment. Hard to tell there too, as his face was deeply weathered and tanned from decades of outside work. I had known him a few years at the time, and I knew he was shy and easily embarrassed, more so than most people should be.

We laughed about that for days. Well, at least Kip and I did. Harry just kinda mumbled along, telling himself it was "all in good fun, man" a common Harry phrase. 

We were in my house one day after work and Harry said something unintelligible to me. I asked him to repeat it because I had no idea what he had said. "Aw man, it's all in good fun." What was all in good fun, I asked. "It was all in good fun, man". WHAT was all in good fun! What did you say?? "All in good fun man..."

This went on for about half a minute. I had no clue what he said, and he wouldn't repeat it, just kept saying that it was all in good fun. I was getting pissed. Previously that afternoon he had said he was very upset because the DJ's on the rock station had been talking about "annual sex". I knew what he meant, but I said, "Harry, annual sex is once a year". "No man- that butt stuff!". He didn't think that was good radio chatter and I agreed with that. 

Well, that is not kitchen table stuff either when my wife and two young kids are around, so I put the kibosh on that. He agreed, but it was then that he said whatever he had said that was "all in good fun, man". 

I was officially pissed then. If he wasn't going to tell me what he had said, he could get the fvck out of my house- NOW!

He left. I was going to beat his ass had he not. Whatever he had said, the conversation had quickly gone from me not catching what he said, to him refusing to repeat it, for whatever reason. Was it awful? Just a dumb comment? Was it about 'annual sex'? WHAT??!! I'll never know.

We soon enough buried that. He still wouldn't tell me what he had said, and it was, of course, all in good fun. I had to work with the guy, but as a sort of precaution, I didn't have to have him at my house so much either after that.