Sure as Fate Puns

So, she walks over and takes a seat next to him on the bench, turns to him and says, "Sorry to bother you. I know this may be a little forward but I would love to grab coffee with you some time."

Flattered, the man responds, "Sure... but what makes you so certain you and I would get along so well?"

"Well..." the woman says. "A couple things, actually. I noticed you were wearing an Iron Maiden t-shirt. Iron Maiden are my favorite band of all time. When they went on their reunion tour in 1999, my parents took me to see them in Cleveland. I was 12 years old and it was the first concert I ever went to. I absolutely love Iron Maiden."

The man can't believe it.

"I saw them play Cleveland in '99! First concert I ever went to on my own. My best friend Jimmy Spitz and I told our parents we were sleeping at each others' houses, snuck out, took a bus into the city and saw them play at the Plain Dealer Pavillion!"

Naturally, they're both shocked.

"If that isn't weird enough..." says the woman. "I noticed you're reading Mark Twain. I was a communications major in university and I actually wrote my thesis on Mark Twain and how he used satire as a lens to comment on current events of the time, comparing him to satirical news sources of today. He's my favorite author."

Now the man is really taken aback, "Get out of here! I was an English major in university! I specialized in 19th century American literature and this is like my fourth or fifth time reading Tom Sawyer, I absolutely love Mark Twain."

They both can't believe it...this has got to be a match made in heaven.

"Ok..." the woman says. "Well, buckle up because here's the icing on the cake. I noticed you're eating a prune. Prunes are my absolute favorite fruit. When I was a kid, my grandfather lived on a farm. He had an orchard that mainly grew apples and some lemons, but he knew how much my sister and I loved prunes so he kept a couple of plum trees. Every year at the end of the summer, we'd go up and harvest the plums with him. He'd dry them and by the time we'd go back to his place for Thanksgiving he'd always have those prunes saved just for us. They're my favorite fruit! I love prunes, you're eating a prune, this has got to be fate. What do you say?"

The man puts down his fruit and responds,

"It's a date!"

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

Hey guys. As I'm sure most of you know, it's currently Thanksgiving in Canada. This time of year for me has, in the past, caused a lot of issues in my life.

To give a little bit of background on me, I'm usually an extremely healthy and fit guy, as I play high-level sports and have a physically demanding job. However, for much of my life, my willpower began to crumble around this time of year.

I first started taking my diet seriously when I was about 12 years old. I had some kind of realization where like, I dunno, I started looking at how jacked these movie stars were and was all, "wow, I want to be that cool too." Judging by the bowl cut I had when I was 12, my perception of cool may have been a little skewed, but I digress.

Anyhow, it was my first Thanksgiving where everything started falling apart. One of my relative's families ended up no-showing for dinner, so we were left with a load of Thanksgiving leftovers. For the next week, every single meal or snack I had was Thanksgiving themed. Sandwich? Turkey sandwich. Breakfast? Let's dollop some cranberry sauce on that bad boy. By the next week, my BGC (blood gravy content) was probably at like 1.0%.

You'd think I'd be sick of holiday food after that. But no. I loved it.

The tradition of refrigerated Thanksgiving snacks continued throughout the rest of my teen years. Like clockwork, the numbers on the scale would significantly jump upwards in October, with Halloween candy adding an extra layer of calories on top. By the time I reached 17, my waist had begun noticeably ballooning, and I realized it was all due to Thanksgiving turkey. Sure, I had some at Christmas and sometimes at Easter, but never like that. My mother would encourage this habit, making more food each year to be stuffed into our packed refrigerator.

The movie star bod I wanted for so much at the age of 12 was slipping a way. I needed to put an end to this.

Flash forward to October 2015, age 18. I had made a vow: I never again would place such putrid poultry onto my tastebuds. And ever since that fateful week of 2014, my vow had held true.

Each Thanksgiving, I can feel that craving for chilled turkey knocking on the refrigerator door of my fragile ego. For three years, I've held strong. But when will the garrison fall? When will that soft, biting flesh of the big bird smash it's way back into my life.

But so far, I've quit cold turkey.