“A sandwich walks into a cantina and orders a drink. Bartender says, ‘Sorry we don’t serve food here.’”
“No, that’s not the best one. A better one is more like: Child asks: ‘Dad, make me a sandwich!’ And the Dad replys: ‘Poof, You’re a sandwich!’”
The men sat opposite the table from one another, heads bowed towards the table. A drink lay idly in hand as they pondered with furrowed brow(s).
“Hey, I was thinking-”
“Oh, I thought I smelt something burning…”
The pair burst out laughing and didn’t stop for almost a full minute.
“S-stop! I-I’ll die!” Braecen cradled his stomach with both hands as Ernordeth grasped the table fiercely to stop the shaking. Suddenly, the red-skinned man shook harder and he reached over to his flushed friend.
“I have one-pfff, it’s a really-pfff-good one!”
The shaking reduced to anticipatory tremors as they giggled back and forth at one another. Ernordeth took a brief drink before sharing a conspiratory glance with his friend.
“Whenever we used to drive past a nice looking graveyard my Dad would say, ‘Do you know why I can’t be buried there?’ And I would say, ‘Why not?’ And he’d say, ‘Because I’m not dead yet!’”
The pair laughed through their teeth but Braecen broke free of the contractions, “Is that the best you can do? I asked my dad for his best Dad joke and all he said was, ‘You.’”
The mugs shook their contents free as the pair entered a seizure like state of laughing, the floor about their table soaked wet. A waitress walked sharply towards them, lowering her head to the table and fixing both occupants with an icy stare.
“Sirs, you’re disturbing the other customers. And you’ve left a mess all over the floor.”
She sighed irritably and Ernordeth lifted both hands up, “I have no problems tidying it up. I even used to be addicted to soap, but I’m clean now.”
Braecen snorted but kept control of himself as he tried to get the waitresses attention. She folded her arms and stared him down.
“Please don’t judge my friend too harshly, you see, his girlfriend didn’t like his beard, but it grew on him.”
She threw her arms down and moved to grab their nearly empty mugs.
“Hey, hey! My drink! I’m not done yet, okay?” he cradled it close to him and turned to his friend, “It’s hard to explain things to kleptomaniacs, they always take things literally.”
Braecen spat out the last mouthful of his drink onto the table and the waitress took a disgusted step back.
“That’s it! I've had it, I'm sorry but you have to-”
“Make like a Neti and leave?”
The men threw their heads back and laughed heartedly, their seats creaking under the weight of their merriment. At first the waitress became enraged, her expression denoting the long hours of work and similarly obnoxious patrons she had to put up with to earn her measly paycheck. Then suddenly it was as if a sweet scent had wafted beneath her nose, her frow softened, her eyelids rising to cup two bright eyes. She took a step toward the table and laughed.
“Oh, listen to me getting so frazzled! I wasn’t originally going to get a brain transplant, but then I changed my mind. Everything was downhill from there, my mathematics teacher at school called me average- how mean, right? Ahh, oh well, I should have given him a nasty look, but he already had one,” a few chuckles echoed around the oddly quiet cantina. She waved the comment away, “Never mind, he was cross-eyed and just couldn’t control his pupils, I suppose.”
Ernordeth let out a sound of confusion and Braecen froze, his eyes glued to her face like a newborn. She played her part well, her body language more fluid as she allowed some emotion to colour her movement. with one hand she covered her mouth and laughed, shifting ever so closer to the table.
“Should I tell you about the book I’m reading? It’s about anti-gravity- impossible to put down,” she closed in on Ernordeth, who by now was even redder than usual, “Or how I’m learning sign language? It’s pretty handy,”now she leaned in close, her cleavage clearly on display, “You could cut off each foot and you still wouldn’t defeat me.”
She swiftly grabbed both empty mugs and strode away, her hips in full sway. Braecen began to chuckle and it spread through the room like wildfire until the room was full of laughter. Sound returned to the cantina and rather than continue where they left off, the friends ordered another round for some courage and spent their time discussing the best one liners.