So I wrote a short piece for the Variety section on funny New Year's Eve anecdotes. It was going to be a longer piece until I learned that perhaps my best saga, which I had been told took place on Dec. 31 a few decades back, actually happened earlier in the month.

Although the main source requested anonymity, the names have not been changed to protect anyone, and only one word has been altered to protect our status as a family newspaper's blog. (See if you can pick it out). Here goes:

"This was just before 1980 at the Sofitel. A Moet Hennessy employee named Robert Gordain had a gift for stacking Champagne glasses in a pyramid, and also knew how to 'saber' Champagne [use a saber to uncork the bottle].

"So the Sofitel was featuring Moet Chandon for December, and to kick off the month, this Gordain, who looks like a troll, stacks up about 600 Champagne glasses, this huge pyramid in the atrium of the Sofitel. They had [Vikings running back] Rickey Young there as a celebrity, only Gordain thought he was a busboy.

"Anyway, Gordain had this 6-liter bottle of Moet Imperial. Now anytime you see a 6-liter bottle, it's iffy, This one was probably from before I was born. And as he goes to saber the bottle, the cork just falls off.

"Gordain rushes up there and says to me 'the cork-soaker is flat!' And I said 'pour it, schmuck, nobody knows that but you and me.' So he pours it, and everybody thinks it's wonderful."

And they all lived happily ever after, I guess