[ WP ] A newly-hired bartender is slowly realizing that he 's working at the bar from all of those `` X walks into a bar '' jokes .

The last bartender grinned as I signed the employment papers, then handed me a metal pipe with an odd scribbling on it. 
 
 `` What's this?'' I asked. 
 
 `` When someone walks in you listen to their story, then make an observational comment on what they say or look like. After that? Hit'em with this. It'll knock them right off the stool,'' he said. 
 
 Then he pranced out of the front door yelling, `` I quit!'' 
 
 This had to be a joke, I thought. I looked at every plaque, bottle, and furnishing. I'd seen them all before, like someone took every memory and image of a bar and compiled a living mosaic. 
 
 The last bartender stormed back in. 
 
 `` I forgot something, sorry. What you're holding, we call that. It's so old, you probably ca n't read it, anyway, we gave it a nickname, because it looks like it hurts and it's pretty straight,'' he said as he walked forward. 
 
 `` Well, what do we call it? Looks like a bar to me,'' I contemplated his instructions and did just as he said: I swung at his eyes. His facial features twisted around the metal pipe as he jerked away and landed face first on the floor. He looked up with a bloodied forehead. 
 
 `` No, we call it the punchline.''
