How ignorant--more likely arrogant--he is. This doofus, Dave. Does he really not know that a man must remove his hat indoors? Hard to believe, given that the so-called Victorian-Era rule of etiquette still sails, more than a century later and an ocean away. More likely, Dave well knows the rule, just chooses to blatantly flout it.

Which is not fair to the rest of us guys. Sure, we'd all love to keep our caps on to hide our balding heads. To look 10 years younger. To have better luck--make that any luck--with the ladies.

No, after a year and two months of these Friday-night dances, Dave still stubbornly declines to tip his cap to convention. And the women--young women, damn him!--fawn over Dave all the more for his "fashion statement."

Since when is a grey-and-black herringbone newsboy cap considered a "fashion statement," I'd like to know. Dave just looks ridiculous. He's a good 50 years past newsboy, for Chrissakes! He's got to be older than I am. By five years, at least. Why, Dave must be well into his 60s. He looks 45 with the dunce cap, so add 10 years plus another 10 for the low light.

Every Friday, for a year-and-two-months now, how I've been itching to "accidentally" swipe off Dave's cap and show him up for the vain pretender he is! I don't know which would gratify me more: To witness Dave's humiliation or the disgust of his soon-to-be-erstwhile entourage.

Turns out, I didn't have to knock off Dave's cap: last week someone else did it for me. Dave's dance partner-of-the-moment. Actually, she didn't knock it off, merely asked him where he'd bought it. Dave obligingly doffed his cap and handed it over for her to inspect the label.

And by so doing revealed a head of hair so glorious that it rivaled a Prell advertisement. Cliched chestnut curls: shiny, silky, bouncy. Which made Dave look 10 years younger. About 35. Seconds later the lights came up, which, perversely, made Dave look 10 years younger still. About 25.

Which wouldn't have pissed me off if he really were 25. I'd have passed him off as just a kid too dumb or cocky to comply with the hat rule. But then I realized Dave had to be pushing 40. When, soon after the lights had come up, I noticed him showing his harem pictures of his teenage kids.

At least, I thought he'd said they were his kids. But I misheard: turns out they are Dave's grandchildren. That hat-wearing, hair-hiding, age-defying, six-packing son-of-a-bitch must be 60-something after all!