Of course, you aren't born owning a bar. At least most people aren't. Most people don't end up acquiring a bar the same way I did either. You see there is a bit of a story here. 

I was your average Joe. For real, my name is Joe and I'm about as average as you can get. A creature of habit. All my days were the same. Wake, wash, wolf down warmed-over waffles and wander wearily workward. The drive to and from work were the high point of my day. The drive, the workday, and my evenings were as predictable as the bumper-to-bumper traffic and the mindless chatter on the car radio, the monotony of my work routine, and finally the blandness of my TV dinners and the sitcoms I'd watch while eating them. My only joy was annoying associates ad-libbing alliterations. I led a very solitary and uneventful life.

Uneventful until the day I was sideswiped on my way home from work. It was a kid on a cell phone in a ten-year-old clunker pulling out of a strip mall almost as if he'd been lying in wait for me. Luckily nobody was seriously hurt. I did get a cut above my eyebrow from my steering wheel. The slight bleeding, made it appear worse than it was. Both cars had some minor body damage but they were still drivable. We pulled over to exchange insurance info and call the police. The insurance companies would want a police report. Luckily, we could pull right back into the strip mall where we could wait for the cops without blocking traffic.

Naturally, a crowd gathered around our vehicles to inspect the damage. Some offered to supply eye witness reports. Some were just there out of curiosity. One medical professional checked both the kid and myself over and recommended I get stitches for my cut. There was, however, one guy at the back of the crowd staring intently at me. While the rest of the crowd were dividing their stares between the kid, me, and our banged-up cars, this guy just kept looking at me. It was creepy. He did seem very familiar in an unnerving, cue-the-Twilight-Zone-music way.

After the police had all their info and everyone else had left, the mysterious guy came up to me and began talking to me as if we were long lost brothers.

"Rough day, huh?" he said as he leaned against my car.

"Yeah, you don't know the half of it," I responded putting my hand on the door handle to let him know I wanted to leave and was really not in the mood for idle chitchat. Normally, I might have just ignored the guy altogether, but like I said, there was just something very familiar about him.

"Yeah, your birthday and nobody remembered. Car wreck on top of that. This is a day you'll never forget." He grimaced sympathetically.

What the..., I thought. How did he know it was my birthday? Wait, the police officer did wish me a happy birthday when he saw my birth date on my driver's license. Maybe the stranger overheard.  But he was standing so far away. 

I looked at him trying to figure out where I knew him from. He was about my height, build and coloring but maybe thirty years older. Somehow, he knew it was my birthday. Unless he had super hearing or was telepathic, we must have met at some point in time and he had gotten to know me well enough to know when my birthday was, but for the life of me, I could not come up with anything. Finally, I asked, "I'm sorry, I'm sure we've met but I'm pretty shook up from the accident and I just can't place you."

"Don't worry about it. It will come to you eventually" he chuckled unhelpfully and seeming to enjoy my confusion. He then hesitated as if he was uncertain of what he should say next. "I just wanted to wish you a happy birthday and give you something." He handed me a business card that said "Joe's an American cantina." Below the name was the invitation, "Eat at Joe's" followed by an address and a phone number. He added, "Meet me at this address tomorrow noon. I'll buy you lunch and make you an offer you won't refuse. You need to go to the urgent care now and get that eyebrow taken care of." He opened my car door and indicated I should get in. I did because I was woozy from the crash and figured I really did need to get to the Urgent Care place. As he closed the door for me, he said, "The urgent care is three blocks up on your right. See you tomorrow."