Last month's Savor the Flavor at the Burr Mansion was everything you could ask for: a sell-out crowd, rooms stuffed with an endless supply of fantastic foods (and the perfect wines to match), tables of silent auction items, hotly contested door prizes and a head-scratching unsolved mystery.

First the mystery: Where the @#$% did our tablecloths disappear to? At the end of the evening we had three tablecloths unaccounted for, two round and one rectangular. Anyone with information about the runaway linens, please contact the Chamber office at 255-1011. Thank you.

Before they pulled their Houdini act, the tablecloths and their compatriots graced bistro tables, food tables, auction tables and table tables. If there was a table or anything that remotely looked like one, it was covered. There were floral arrangements the size of Buicks and decorations that took the wine theme as far as it could go without importing actual French people to squish grapes on the front lawn.

And the food ... with five restaurants in the house, we had something for every taste bud. Donatella's, Sweet Basil, Sarabande and the Angus Steakhouse came prepared to feed an army (an army with excellent taste, I might add), and Luigi's had too many pastries and other desserts to count. No one was counting anyway, just lots of hungry stomachs debating with their attached brains about all the days that had passed since New Year's, and all the days before their next opportunity to seriously pig out. Exit polling showed that the stomachs won by a wide margin.

Twenty wines from Nancy Panzenbeck's vast wine cellar spanned the whole world and complemented every dish with aplomb. The vino kept pouring all night long, 130 delirious people drowning in grapes.

Greg Beno's slideshow captured the evening in detail, though it offers no clues to the whereabouts of those tablecloths.

Besides an array of auction items, we had some big lodging and entertainment packages to give away as door prizes, ranging from downtown Fairfield to Mystic and faraway Mount Snow, VT. The tickets were selling like hotcakes. (When was the last time anyone saw hotcakes selling like hotcakes? Oh, never mind.)

We must thank the volunteers who pitched in to make the night a success, our sponsors for their generous contributions to this annual fundraising event, and—

Hey, wait! You with the tablecloth: Don't move.

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The stage is set for the big showdown. From April 8–10, our Membership Drive teams will fight to the death in the arena. (If the arena happens to look like a phone bank, that's just a coincidence.) Yes, it's the Battle of the Banks!

And now it's time for you to line up behind the fearless leader of your choosing. Pick a bank. Pick a date. Pick a time. Then pick up the phone to enlist.

It's history in the making: Ride into battle on a comfy office chair! Smite your enemies with a telephone! Reach for glory and some good, clean fun!

Morning sessions feature a continental breakfast amidst the blood and guts; our afternoon teams will enjoy sandwiches when they aren't gnawing on the bones of the vanquished.

Tuesday, Apr. 8 — 8:30 to noon
Captain Steve Stevens, Fairfield County Bank
Call: Steve at 319-7070

Tuesday, Apr. 8 — 1 to 4 pm
Captain Andrea Barron, Patriot National Bank
Call: Andrea at 292-1770

Wednesday, Apr. 9 — 8:30 to noon
Captain Marilyn Wiegman, People's United Bank
Call: Marilyn at 256-5749

Wednesday, Apr. 9 — 1 to 4 pm
Captain Peter Andreotto, Commerce Bank
Call: Peter at 336-6312

Thursday, Apr. 10 — 8:30 to noon
Captain Dimitris Raptopoulos, HSBC Bank
Call: Dimitris at 254-0887

Join the fight today! If nothing else, 20 years from now you can stand up and say, "I was there when my bank kicked everyone else's @$$ into Litchfield County."

So choose your weapons, and choose a side. We'll see you on the battlefield.

(Obligatory fine print: Safety first. Small parts may choke yappy little dogs. Not recommended for adults lacking a sense of humor. And above all, this is not an FDIC-insured event — don't even think about it.)

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