Dinner with Adam Sandler

BY MIKE COTE

I saw Adam Sandler drinking a mudslide at the Puritan Backroom. His hair was perfect.

That’s a lie.

I don’t know what Sandler was drinking that day, and I’d say his hair was less than perfect.

The Backroom is the celebrated birthplace of the fried chicken tender. Locals know it as the place where you might spot U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas, the third-generation co-owner of the Manchester restaurant.

On occasion, you might also see Sandler, the Central High alumnus who worked there in the ice cream shop as a kid and for some mysterious reason has never made a movie about Opera Man, my favorite Sandler bit from “Saturday Night Live.”

Sandler must feel right at home at the Backroom, except for when he has to suffer gawkers who won’t let him eat his chicken tenders in peace.

Our party of four was waiting in the bar for a table when Sandler arrived one summer day 10 years ago. The comedian and his family were immediately escorted to the dining room.

Only seconds elapsed before my wife, Jeannie, and my stepdaughter, Lauren, transformed into two high school girls who had just spotted a cute boy. All of a sudden, they had to go to the bathroom. Time for a Sandler sighting.

They buzzed by his table and came back in giggles, reporting the success of their mission to me, my cousin, Donna and my son-in-law, A.J.

That was chapter one. A few minutes later, our table was ready. The hostess, unaware of Jeannie and Lauren’s surveillance trip, seated us right next to Sandler.

From that moment on, Jeannie focused her bionic ear on the conversation at the next table and silenced my every word.

“Shhh! Adam Sandler is talking!” It was like my date had just spied the guy she had really wanted to ask to the prom.

Meanwhile, A.J., whose seat was closest to Sandler, spoke to the superstar and shook his hand. Engage. Disengage. The confident salesman at work.

Jeannie was having none of that. When Sandler stood up and walked around the dining room, she pounced. Sandler barely made it around a corner before he was posing for a photo with Jeannie, with another female fan waiting on deck.

As her accomplice, my job was to take a photo of Jeannie with her new boyfriend. I had no opportunity to shake Sandler’s hand, and it felt awkward to say anything other than thank you.

There’s a documentary that recounts one fan’s years-long journey to recreate the moment he had a chance to talk to Sandler — and blew it — so he could get another shot.

I’ve thought a lot about what I could have done with mine.

I should have asked Sandler how he ended up appearing on the Warren Zevon tribute album, “Enjoy Every Sandwich,” which included heavyweights like Don Henley and Jackson Browne. I could have shared that I once interviewed Zevon long after his ’70s fame had faded and he was reduced to playing a sports bar in a Florida strip mall.

On the tribute album, Sandler performs Zevon’s signature hit, “Werewolves of London,” and nails it.

I’ll tell Sandler that next time. For now, I have a lovely souvenir photo of the happiest woman in the world standing next to a guy who looks like he’d rather be someplace else.

Say, at Trader Vic’s, sipping a pina colada with a werewolf.