Real Country Puns

Kilometer Cyrus

Son: Wow that stream is really rush'en.

Me: oh good that is so much better than German.

I just had to pick a country real quick not trying to make any statement....

Me: Is there a real country between Jordania and Egypt?

My friend: Yeah, it Israel.

Back a few decades, I was working in a program with a local college in the Middle East.

The name of the program for ExPats has the clever acronym of "IDEA" (hey, I said it was clever); which stands for "Inter-Departmental Educational Adjunct". It's interdepartmental because my particular specialty not only covers field geology but also paleontology and a bit of archeology thrown in for good measure. Everyone hopes to have a good IDEA...

ahem...

Well, we saddle up and head for the Dune Sea out in the west of the country, where the Precambrian, Cambrian, Silurian, Cretaceous, Pliocene, Pleistocene, and Holocene crop out and access is relatively easy and non-injurious.

Well, we caravan out, some 30 Land Cruisers, Nissan patrol, and the odd Mitsubishi Galloper strong. We all get our maps, compasses and split up into 5 or 6 special interest groups ("SIG's"); where each IDEA has his own GPS and LIDAR laser ranging apparatus. Reason being, that there are very few benchmarks out in the desert, and even those are constantly at the mercy of the shifting and ever-blowing sands.

Since we're split into groups and at any one time, ranging up to and including some 50 km2, when a real find is located, a device called the "DIME" (Digital-Interface Monitor Encoder) is attached and programmed into the GPS for location later; it is a digital sort of low-frequency transponder, developed from technology used by offshore drillers and jacket setters where benchmarks are even more transitory.

The way it works is rather simple. When something is to be marked for later retrieval, a series of wooden posts are pounded in a triangular manner around the find and the DIME is set, programmed with the GPS and attached to one or more of the posts.

That's the theory, at least.

Everything works well, especially all the hardened electronics and computer gizmos, but attaching the DIME to the stakes is the real problem. It can't be nailed, screwed or fastened with any sort of metal contrivance as that farkles the magnetic field and causes all sorts of goofy spurious signals. Zip ties don't last long in the heat and duct tape is right out. Many sites have been lost to the shifting sands this way.

Velcro doesn't work too well, as the sand fills the hooks of the receiving piece of velcro and soon renders it useless. String or fishing line work, but that's temporary (they melt). Glue or mastic are out as these are supposed to be temporary. Even plastic sleeves don't work due to the heat out

"Philogelos" or "The Laughter Lover" is a collection of 265 ancient Roman jokes, written in the 4th century AD. Some of them feel... very appropriate for this sub:

• A boy caught sight of a deep well on his country-estate, and asked if the water was any good. The farmhands assured him that it was good, and that his own parents used to drink from that well. The boy expressed his amazement: "How long were their necks, if they could drink from something so deep!"

• When a boy was told by someone, "Your beard is now coming in," he went to the rear-entrance and waited for it.

• A boy checked in on the parents of a dead classmate. The father was wailing: "O son, you have left me a cripple!" The mother was crying: "O son, you have taken the light from my eyes!" Later, the boy suggested to his friends: "Well, if he were guilty of all that, he probably deserved to die!"

• A boy came to check in on a friend who was seriously ill. When the man's wife said that he had 'departed', the intellectual replied: "When he arrives back, will you tell him that I stopped by?"

• A boy had been at a wedding-reception. As he was leaving, he said: "What a wonderful ceremony! I pray that your next marriages are as enjoyable as this one."

• A man met his friend in the street, who said: "Congratulations! I hear that you've got a new baby boy!" The man replied: "Indeed, but I'm still trying to find the father!"

• A man saw a eunuch talking with a woman and asked him if she was his wife. When he replied that eunuchs can't have wives, the man asked: "So is she your daughter?"

• A man was being heckled by a friend: "I had your wife, without paying a dime!" The man replied: "It's my duty as a husband to couple with such a monstrosity. What made you do it?'

• An incompetent schoolteacher was asked who the mother of Priam was. Not knowing the answer, he said: "Well, I suppose it's polite to call her Ma'am."

• A man, just back from a trip abroad, went to an incompetent fortune-teller. He asked about his family, and the fortune-teller replied: "Everyone is fine, especially your father." When the man objected that his father had been dead for ten years, the reply came: "Ah, then you must have no clue who your real father is!"

• A misogynist paid his last respects at the tomb of his dead wife. When someone asked him, "Who has gone to rest?," he replied: "Me, at last!"

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