A Personal Variation On A Joke I Still Don't Understand

So this fucking midget walks into a bar with a chimpanzee on his shoulders, right? It’s cold as shit, and both the midget and the monkey are covered with snow and frost; the chimp, in fact, looks almost like it could be dead.

There’s not another soul in the bar but the blind bartender and his seeing eye dog, which is seated on a stool down at the other end of the bar.

“What can I get you?” the bartender asks the midget.

“Give me a shot of brandy,” the midget says, “and keep ’em coming.”

“And for the monkey?” the bartender asks.

“How’d you know I had a monkey?” the midget says.

The bartender jerks his head toward the back of the bar. “The dog told me.”

“Well, the monkey’s on the wagon,” the midget says. “He’s presently laying off the sauce.”

The bartender nods and fetches the brandy, which the midget commences to nurse in silence. After a number of minutes the chimpanzee seems to thaw out and proceeds to bare its teeth and drum furiously on the midget’s head.

“What the hell is it?” the midget finally demands.

“I never heard that fucking dog say a word,” the monkey says.

“Well?” the midget says to the bartender. “You heard the monkey. Let’s see you make the dog speak.”

“I can’t make the dog speak if he doesn’t want to speak,” the bartender says. “It’s a trade-off. I respect his occasional glowering silences and he makes sure I don’t get hit by a bus.”

“Come on,” the monkey says, addressing himself now directly to the dog. “Let’s hear you say something. Fifty bucks says I’m the only talking animal in this bar.”

The dog glares across the room at the midget and the monkey, takes a long drag on his cigarette, and finally says, very slowly, “Chocolate milk.”