No Good Either Way Puns

After many years of wandering, he finally arrived in a small village in the middle of nowhere. The people there believed in the same religion as he did, but they had no church; they had to go to the nearest one which was in a small town 25 km's from there. The priest took the initiative, asked the Church for support, and with the help of the local men they built their own temple. From there on, he was celebrating the Sunday masses, joining together men and women in Holy Matrimony, and saying prayers at the funerals.

Many years passed by like that.

At the end of an ordinary mass, in early spring, on a chilly Sunday morning he was just guiding the people out of the church, was about to close the gates when an unknown man stepped into the churchyard.

With his dirty and torn clothes, he stood before the priest and said:

• Priest, please be good and give me half a lemon! - the priest was a good man, and even though he thought the request was a bit strange, he went back to the rectory, took out a lemon, cut it in half, took it back to the man and gave it to him, who looked back to the priest with gratitude. However, the priest was curious. He asked:

• Son, why do you need this half of a lemon? - with a fright on his face, and before the priest could have said a thing, he rushed out of the churchyard gate and took off.

A week later, around the same time, when the priest was leaving the church, he found himself in front of the same man in the churchyard. The man said:

• Priest, please be good and give me half a lemon! - the priest was surprised by the appearance of the man and his strange request. Of course he was good, went back to the rectory, and brought the half lemon. Placed it in the stranger’s hand and immediately he asked:

• Here it is, my dear son, but please tell me why do you need this half a lemon? - the man was obviously frightened and immediately ran away but the priest was not sluggish either and ran after him. He wasn’t in a very good condition, he has never run so much and so fast before so he was out of breath by the end of the village, almost fainted. He thought the strange man might appear again next week, and it would be nice if he could keep up with him, so he spent his week working on his cardio. It turned out to be a good idea, because as he thought, the stranger entered the churchyard on Sunday. The priest didn’t even wait for the request, he was good, and brought the half lemon. He received these words from the man:

• Thank you

I just came back from a holiday back to the UK to visit friends and family (am an expat).

While we were there we went to a nice community festival, with some great beers. An American friend of a friend proudly proclaimed that he’d bought a pint of red stout.

Looking up at the board, and seeing the name of the beer, my eyes lit up: a golden opportunity had just presented itself.

‘Nah mate, that’s not red stout, it’s called Red Stoat. You do know what a stoat is, right?

[confusion]

‘Well, it’s a little rodent, a bit like a weasel. You know how you can tell the difference between a stoat and a weasel?’

‘Er..’

‘Well’, I says, ‘a weasel is weasily identifiable, and a stoat is stoatally different.’

Cue a puzzled look on the guys face, and a moment’s silence, broken by me and my friend pissing ourselves laughing, not at the joke of course, but at his reaction.

So this was all very well and good, just another in the litany of bad jokes that floats in my wake, and I thought the story ended there.

Karma, however, had other plans…

A few days later, we’re up in the Lake District, walking back to the hotel after a pub dinner. As we’re walking down the road, we see a small carnivorous rodent dragging the recently deceased body of a rabbit back to its home. It was either a stoat, or a weasel, but you know what? I honestly had no way to tell which…