Being Present At The Birth Of A Bar Joke

 The The

The Last Supper (Sketch for an altarpiece) 1997, 245cm X 245cm, oil on canvas, artist unknown, seen in the airport at Keflavik, Iceland, Jan1998

There I was, sitting at the bar in Jose O'Shea's. A man takes the barstool to the left of me, orders a drink in a distinctive accent. I introduce myself and ask where he's from. His name is Mark and he's from London. We converse a bit, then another man sits down on my right. He also possesses a distinctive accent. Introductions...his name is Trevor, born in Australia, raised in London, currently living in Poland. 

It's just a few moments later that a man sits a barstool over from Trevor and proceeds to order a beer in an accent similar to Mark and Trevor's. Introductions. His name is Richard, born and raised in north Britain, has lived in South Africa for a few decades now.

None of these three men know each other - two of them arrived in Denver this very afternoon. All of them are here on business.

What are the odds that three men who all spent their early years on a small island just west of continental Europe would years later sit down at a bar together in the heart of the American Midwest? 

The probabilities have got to be fairly astronomical.

I don't really have a punchline for this, and it's not much of a joke - it could be, if only one of them had walked in the bar nude, carrying a penguin. Damn.