I'm going to tell a little story today about New Years Eve 2011. I was working at a small restaurant in Hood River, Oregon. A family owned place that was popular with the older crowd for some reason.

It was just after 6pm and I was at work in the kitchen. I had just finished getting my grill ready for what would prove to be a busy night. Being New Year's Eve as it was the restaurant was still slow this early, so I grabbed my phone to check out some Twitter.

Yep, I was big on Twitter back then, well I wasn't big, Twitter was big with me. I did not really tweet, I just enjoyed the comedy. There were some very funny folks on Twitter at that time, and I'm a huge fan of one-liners. So I'm scrolling through my feed when I see this tweet.

Now I'm a big Howard Stern fan and at the time I would listen to every show. You can imagine my excitement when I saw this tweet. My mind starts racing as I try to think of the most clever tweet I could. I think of something, quickly type it and hit "tweet". Unfortunately I can't find that first reply I sent, but I do remember it was a dig on his west coast rivals that I used to listen to in the 80's, Mark & Brian.

As soon as I re-read my reply I know it's not right. I need something more positive, it's New Year's Eve and he's drinking with his wife, having a good time calling fans... Then it hits me!

Back in 2011 he and his wife released a calendar with pictures by Howard. All the proceeds went to the North Shore Animal League. The first 500 were autographed by the both of them and I had one! Now to construct the perfect tweet. It had to be short and to the point I figured, and something from the heart would probably be a good thing, so...

_{Yes, my Twitter handle is franeatsfarts, it's a joke, like Twitter.}

There it was, with the word "beautiful" in all caps too, it had to work! I tapped tweet and put my phone on the shelf where I was working. As I flipped steaks and plated food I could only think about my tweet.

Then it happened, my phone rang!!!

I picked it up off the shelf and looked at the screen, it looked something like this.

_{Not actual sceen}

Holy SHIT! I have never gotten a call from a private number. I took a breath and answered the call (I'm nervous now just thinking about this so you can imagine...).

- Note; at the time my Twitter had my first name on it, Chris.

Me: hello?

Deep voice: Chris!

Me: Howard! Happy new year man!

Woman says something I don't quite hear

Me: What was that?

Howard : That was Beth, she asked how you knew it was me?

Me(imitating Howard in my deepest voice: Chris!

They both burst out laughing! I made Howard Stern laugh!

Me: This is unbelievable, hey thank you guys for the calendar, I love it.

From this point on its pretty much a blur. I know he asked me where I lived and what I was doing at the moment. I told him I was in Oregon and that I was currently working as a chef with a busy night ahead. I'm sure I said, "unbelievable" quite a few times, then we wished each other well and I hung up.

As you might imagine I was on cloud 9. This made my year. Funny thing is, at that moment, I had no one to tell. The guys I worked with in the kitchen were all from other countries and had no idea who Howard Stern was. A few of the servers knew who he was, but they didn't like him! So I just put my head down and went to work, with the biggest smile on my face I'd had in years no doubt.

He did tweet about all the people he talked to that night, but I can't find those either, too old I guess. But I remember the tweet, it was a reply to my tweet and it said, "Working as a chef in Oregon tonight. Nice chatting Chris."

The restaurant was starting to get busy at this point but I did manage a call to my best buddy over in Arizona. He has been a Stern fan for longer than me and was freaking out. Of course he got right on Twitter and tried his luck but it was not to be.

This was definitely one of the coolest things that has happened to me and I doubt I will soon forget the time Howard Stern called me!