I told someone I just got out of prison

He laughed. Vladimir (for that was the name I made up for him), said 'Look at my hair, I have too.' We sat in awkward silence for a moment and Vlad (when you've shared something like that, you soon come up with the most incredibly creative diminutives) strutted off towards the bar. Eventually he came back with our pizza but there was something menacing about the way he put it on the table. 'Pepper?' he asked. 'Yes,' I said, becoming convinced that he'd laced my dinner with polonium or monosodium glutamate or something and was going to try to steal my girl. When I put this possibility to S, she giggled into her garlic bread and looked whimsically towards the kitchen door. As we sat at the bar after dinner I vowed never again to tell a strapping Russian with a shaved head (who, incidentally, was something of a dead ringer for the psychopath in 15 Minutes- not the fluffy one with the camera, the mean one with the knife) that I was just out of prison. 'I just got back from Iraq,' I said to the girl behind the bar.