William Faulkner, Stephen R. Donaldson, and Maya Angelou walk into a bar.
The bartender looks at them, slightly askance - they’re a weird combo, kinda funny that way - and says “Okay, fine, what’ll it be?”
Faulkner says, “My good man, you are a man, a man with parents, possibly a parent named Henry or perhaps Harry but his real name is Harrison which people shorten to Harry because Harrison sounds vaguely pompous much like this writing and shall we be honest with each other but Harrison’s wife named Margaret is a kind woman but she has to address her husband as Harrison because otherwise she feels the diminutive lacks the gravity and respect that Harrison’s parents Samuel like the prophet and Deborah like the woman named Deborah would have wished instilled upon their-“
“This century, please?”
Faulkner glared. “I should like a Guiness, as from the island of green, green which is the color of-“
“Got it. A beer. You, sir?,” he said, looking at Stephen R. Donaldon.
“Laughing, I should like a beer, perhaps mead, lurid and groaning through its sesquipedalian malaise-“
“Got it. A beer. You, ma’am?”
Maya gathered herself. “A hop, risen in the moonlight like freedom, risen like yeast, risen through the ashes of struggle and conflict-“
“That’ll be $8.” Shaking his head, he muttered to himself while the authors argued how to split the bill, “At least Hemingway knew how to drink.”