Koan: A Grasshopper and a Zen Monk Walk into a Bar

"Hey!" says the barman. "We have a drink named after you!"

"You have a drink named Dave?" says the monk.

"Not you. Him!" The barman points at the grasshopper.

"You have a drink named Harold?" says the grasshopper.

"No," says the barman. "We have a drink called a 'Grasshopper.'"

"I don't get it," says Harold. "I am a grasshopper, OK, but that's not my name. That would be like everybody calling you 'Human'."

"Look," says the barman, throwing together some crème de menthe, crème de cacao, and cream in a cocktail glass. "See? Looks like you."

"It looks nothing like me," says Harold. "To begin with, I'm not a liquid. And if I were, I'd probably still be brown, which is what I am, and not fluorescent green."

The barman opens his mouth to respond, but Dave cuts him off.

"I'll have a pint," he says.


Wu Ya's commentary: "One for the grasshopper as well."


(Photo of sublime ploughman's lunch courtesy of Jon Sullivan and Wikimedia Commons.)