Death by sawing Puns

Trevor loved tractors. And I mean, really loved tractors. Forget any obsessions or high-level interests you may have, chances are they pale in the face of Trevor’s love for tractors.

Every day Trevor would get up, in his tractor-themed bedroom in his tractor-themed house, with its tractor-themed wallpaper and tractor-themed carpets, and he would make his bed with its tractor-themed duvet and tractor-themed sheets. He would go downstairs in his tractor-themed pajamas into his tractor-themed kitchen, with its tractor-themed tiles and cupboards, and he would eat his breakfast while perusing the latest tractor-themed magazine or annual.

Trevors’s degree in Agricultural Engineering hung on his living room wall, along with a copy of his thesis, which centred around (you guessed it) tractors. The living room was decorated with all sorts of tractor-related trinkets, including die-cast models, paintings and drawings.

The hedges in Trevor’s front garden were trimmed in the shape of tractors. His lawn was vividly decorated with tractor-driving garden gnomes, and his garden furniture was constructed from various parts from vintage tractor designs.

Trevor just had one thing missing from his otherwise tractor-centric life; he had never actually owned, nor driven, a real tractor.

Not for his lack of trying, of course. Trevor had been to many tractor shows over the years, and visited many farms with friends of his, but none of the tractors he had seen had ever been quite right. Trevor was so knowledgeable about tractors that every single one he had come across had possessed some hidden trait that he wasn’t keen on. His first experience of driving a real tractor had to be perfect.

One day, Trevor was flicking through one of his favourite publications, Powertrain Quarterly, when there was a knock at the door. Trevor answered, and it was his friend and fellow tractor enthusiast, Jeff.

Trevor welcomed Jeff in, and over tea and crumpets served on tractor-themed crockery, they discussed the merits of aluminium drawbars and front-end loaders. Eventually Trevor pressed Jeff to explain the reason for his visit.

“Well” said Jeff, “As I’m sure you know the convention comes to town later”.

The convention. Trevor had been thinking of little else the past three weeks. The neighbouring town annually threw a convention for farmers, particularly farmyard machinery. There would be combine harvesters, lawnmowers, and of course, tractors.

“Yes of course” replied Trevor

"Welcome everyone to Dads Anonymous. Again my name is Bill and you will notice that we have a new member, please welcome Gary -- Can you tell us what brought you to us today?"

"Well I have a very embarrassing confession. It's even hard to get the words out."

Bill reassures him, "We are all dads here and have been meeting for decades, we've been through all the highs and lows, births and deaths, tragedies, we've heard it all. Just tell us what's on your mind son, we are here to support each other."

"Well, a couple months ago, I broke both my legs in a motorcycle accident and couldn't walk, so I let my wife use the lawnmower." He says through the sobs...

Bob, one of the other dads, starts to get pale. "...and she didn't even cut it in a crisp geometric pattern, it was just random..." Bob starts to sweat and get dry heaves. "YOU BASTARD", he screams. "HOW COULD YOU LET THAT HAPPEN." The dads rise and get ready to beat the crap out of Gary, when Bill stands between them and breaks it up.

"Guys! Guys, we all get weak sometimes and things happen outside our control. Doug, you remember when you were in recovering from Chemo and you gave your wife a hammer, and she used it to hammer a roofing nail into the drywall to hang a picture!" Doug, looks down in shame, "Yes, that was a bad day, I was so weak. She missed the stud and left a dent in the wall, and she just hung the picture over it, crooked!" There was dead silence. "Thats ok Doug, it was twenty years ago, you were young and foolish, you can let it go". Then all the dads shook hands and sat back down.

Bill starts the meeting up again. Then Gary says, "..theres one more thing, Right after I got out of the hospital, she wanted to make a special dinner for us, so I let her grill the steaks..." "OH LORD THIS CAN'T BE HAPPENING!" screams Dave, another dad, his face turning red. Gary continues "...she burnt them one one side and they were dry and chewy." Now there is a bedlam, one dad immediately passes out cold, chairs are thrown, broken bottles, Gary is on the ground being kicked in the ribs. After a few tense minutes Bill managed to get the dads off of Gary. "Stop it, Dave you're killing him. Come on, you remember that time you let your wife go to the repair shop for an oil change?" Dave hung his head, and muttered yeah. "They convinced her to change the cabin filter, wiper blades and the radiator collant..." Bill kept prodding "and, aaand" ...Dave broke down, "and she bought a jug of blinker fluid!" T

Throughout his whole life he was just fascinated with trains. Specifically passenger cars. He would enjoy going on trips with his family.

Demitri grew up and decided to make it his career. Unfortunately the difficult life he had from bullies pushed him towards the bottle and turned him to an alcoholic.

One late night in his shift he wrecked the train killing 10 people. When the courts found out he was drunk while operating they charged him with murder and sentenced him to the electric chair. For his last meal he only requested a simple ripe banana. When his time came the executioner strapped him to chair and asked for any last words. He simply said, "No." The pulled the lever and to everyone's amazement he was unharmed. The government saw this as an act of God and released him.

Couple of years later Dimitri got another job operating locomotives again. Unfortunately bad habits are not easy to quit and he was still an alcoholic. These trains were his only happiness. Unfortunately it happened again. He was drunk and crashed the train this time killing 8 people. He was again sentenced to death by the electric chair. He once again requested a banana. This time executioner really soaked the sponge to not risk a repeat. When the lever was pulled Dimitri was again left unharmed. Once again it was concluded to be another act of God and he was given his freedom.

Dimitri turned to the bottle even more especially having 18 lives gone because of him. He somehow managed to get another job doing what he loved most. It happened again though. This time, 23 people. The courts angry sentenced him one more time to death by electric chair.

When the time for his final meal came he requested another banana. The guards being very visibly upset over the situation denied his request and he was left no last meal. As the time approached and he was strapped to the chair. The executioner had a large grin ready to take this murderous man off Earth. When he pulled the lever however he was still left unharmed.

Furious the executioner cried, "How are you still alive?! You did not eat the banana!"

Dimitri shook his head and simply said, "Oh no officer the banana is not why I'm still alive. It's because I'm a terrible conductor."

An ancient Babylonian general was once involved in a plot to overthrow the king. His plot included a number of followers in the upper ranks of the army. However, his plot was uncovered, and the king threw him in jail. The king sentenced him to death without a trial.

However, from the jail he was able to secretly contact his followers to arrange to escape, meet his followers, and attack the king's palace at night. So the night before his scheduled execution, the general managed to escape from prison. He fled to a ziggurat several kilometers away, where his followers would meet him. However, the ziggurat was one of several in the area, and he wasn't sure if his cohorts would find the right ziggurat. By this time it was twilight, so he lit a small fire and sent smoke signals to indicate in which structure he was hiding.

However, the king's loyal soldiers saw the smoke coming from the ziggurat, and came to arrest him before he could meet his followers. He was executed later that day.

The moral of the story? WARNING: The searching general has determined that smoking ziggurats can be extremely hazardous to your stealth.