Near Myth

Stop me

if you've heard the one

about the traveling salesman with a lisp

who met the farmer's daughter

at a bar where a monkey

ordered a round for everyone

and a fight broke out because

a rabbi, a priest, and an atheist

didn't want to share a boat,

not even as a joke,

not even when the water started rising

as a talking dog rushed in

and announced himself backwards

to the peg-legged bartender

who said, "pull the other one,"

and the salesman shouted,

"Thinking! Thinking! Thinking! Thinking!"

until everyone was certain

he was devising a way to save all of them,

though actually he wasn't.