A Bear Walks Into a Bar…

A Bear walks into a bar and says to the bartender “Give me a……….beer”. The bartender asks, “Why the big pause?” To which the bear replies, “I developed a stutter when I was young and I learned through speech therapy to stay quiet until I fully form the words in my head.” The bartender says with regret in his voice, “Oh, I’m sorry.” Just then a giraffe walks in and looks over the crowd of people. The bartender sees a chance to redeem himself: “Hey buddy, you want a longneck?” The giraffe, never looking down at the bartender says, “No. I’ve been sober for 5 years. I’m looking for my sister.” The bartender’s smile quickly fades. Then a horse walks in. He asks the giraffe, “Any sign of her?” The bartender feels the words coming out. He can’t control the impulse: “Hey buddy, why the long face?” The horse gazes across the bar, his cheeks stained with tears, “My fiancé is missing.” The bartender apologizes, “Let me buy you guys drinks. Beer for you, Bear. Giraffe, you drink soda?” The bartender quickly turns away from his patrons and starts pouring the bear’s beer. “Hey buddy, you alright?”, the bear asks. The bartender turns to find a rather hairy, heavyset man sitting in the bear’s seat. “What?”, the bartender replies quietly as he slowly pans up and over to see the face of a 7-foot something tall man looking down at him with concern. Continuing to pan across, he finds a smaller man with short dark hair wiping tears from his face. “Are you okay?”, the smaller man asks. The bartender feels faint. The room spins. The figures become blurry. “Hey, what’s your name, pal?”, the bear’s voice asks. The bartender looks for an answer to the question, but finds none. “I’ve only ever been referred to as ‘the bartender’…”, he says with puzzlement in his voice. The bartender scratches at the shell of his brain, looking for an explanation of all of this, as he slowly falls to the floor. The bar erupts with the laughter of animals.