14. A man walks into a bar

It started with a man walking into a bar. Not the type of bar that you drink at, although he had just been to such a bar for a few pints where some mugs had been mugged. He had hurried away before any trouble could befall him. With a middle name like Trouble, trouble did tend to follow him around if he wasn't careful.

Since he was lightly pickled and somewhat schmozzled, the man wasn't entirely sure what type of bar he had walked into. He did, nevertheless know that it tasted like chocolate. Because after walking into the bar, he had licked it. The night had never tasted better.

"My chocolate!" shrieked a woman with anger.

The man paused his curious nibbling and pushed away from what appeared to him in his squizzled and fizzled state of mind, to be a giant chocolate bar.

"Chocolate? Yes'm. Mighty fine chocolate. Mighty fine," the man slurred, not remembering whether he was from the north or the south and so the accents he had obtained from his travels blurred together into a mash that actually sounded a lot more like, "Chocammittychocatemyfiiine."

"My perfect work of art has been ruined," wailed the woman, pinching him by the ear and dragging him away. "I can no longer call it my Perfect Bar of Chocolate 2.0 sculpture. They just printed the cards and plaques and everything in the exhibition hall."

She shone a torchlight onto the chocolate bar in the dark for closer examination, while the two men were had been transporting the moving bar had paused to stabilise the sculpture on the trolley. The light appeared to cause more sagging melty lines appear. Another squeal of anger made the man wince and clap his hands to his ears.

"You-you-you drunken idiot! You've left marks and melted the bar," the woman whined. "It's been contaminated. Ruined. My Perfect Bar of Chocolate 2.0 is ruined."

The beschwozzled man, stumbled forward to squint at the man shaped print he had left by leaning on the chocolate sculpture.

"Hey. Looks like a man walked into a bar," he said, with a pleased nod at his wondrous wit.

"Please," said the woman, with a roll of the eyes.

And so the man did it once more.

...

He woke the next day lying his his bed feeling unpleasantly sticky. His bed was a mess and he was covered in a brown mess that had shocked him at first. He vaguely remembered walking into the bar last night and then coming out of the bar to walk into a bar. Whether it was a mud bar or a chocolate bar, he wasn't entirely clear on. In any case, as sweet as it smelled, he and all his bed sheets had needed a thorough cleaning.

Thankfully it was the weekend or he wouldn't have gotten to work on time. Considering he had time today after he had hung up the laundry, he walked down to the local art gallery to have a look at the newest exhibitions. There he came across a strange exhibition of a giant bar of chocolate that had been marred in the middle by the melted shape of a man.

Peering at the label, he read, 'Man walks into a bar'.

The man shook his head. What was the art world doing, just letting any random old piece of artwork into the exhibition? They really needed to raise the bar.