MY FAVORITE IRISH JOKE

It's a Saturday afternoon and an older Irish fella walks into a pub and takes a long look around. The bartender asks if he can be of assistance.

"Oh, yes you can," The man says, "Pull me three pints of Guinness, please. And I'll have them at the big table by the window."

The bartender brings over three pints and the man sets them in a row in front of him, alternately sipping one, then the other, then the third. The bartender watches this strange ritual as he serves his other customers. Then the man waves him over and orders three more.

The bartender smiles, "You know, you don't have to order three at a time. I can keep an eye on you and when you get low I can bring you a fresh one."

The man smiles and shakes his head, "You don't understand. I have two great friends. When we were younger, this is where we used to come to wile away a lovely Saturday afternoon. We'd sit at this table and share a laugh and drink our pints of Guinness. But now my friends have moved away. One's gone to Canada and the other's in Australia. So this is my way of being with them again."

The bartender is quite taken with the man's story and brings him his pints in threes for the rest of the afternoon.

The man comes back the next week and the week after that and the week after that, always ordering three pints of Guinness at a time and slowly sipping first one and then the next and then the next.

But one afternoon he arrives and orders only two pints before moving to take his regular spot at the table by the window. The bartender is troubled by this as he pulls the two pints, delivers them and then watches as the man slowly sips from one glass and then the other. Finally, he can control his concern no longer.

"I'm sorry for your loss," says the bartender "Is it your friend in Australia, or your friend in Canada who's no longer with us?".

"No, they're both fit as fiddles," says the man.

The bartender is confused. "But you've only got two pints!"

"I know," the man says, "I've quit drinking."

Be ye Irish by birth or just for the day, have a Happy St. Patrick's!