The Reflex Puns

He really gets a kick out of it.

"Just for kicks" he replied.

When she arrived at the zoo she went to see her manager and asked what she should do, the manager told her to first go feed the sharks, so she went off to feed them. Whilst she was shovelling the food into the pool a shark jumped out of the water and tried to bite her, as a reflex she hit the shark with the spade and the shark died. Worried about losing her job this soon the woman started brainstorming what to do, eventually she decided to feed the dead shark to the lions thereby removing all evidence and so that is what she did. Shaken but glad she had avoided detection the women went back to see her manager and asked if there was anything else that needed doing, she was told to go and clean out the monkey cage.. So off the woman went with a wheelbarrow and shovel to clean out the cage, as she was shovelling the poop into the barrow a monkey jumped down from the tree towards her! As a reflex reaction the women smashed the monkey with the spade and it lay dead. Thankfully she knew just what to do and so she threw the monkey into the lion cage. Shaken and ready to go home by now, the women went to see if there were any final jobs that needed doing: she was tasked with collecting the honey from the bees. So she got changed into her protective gear however she forgot to tuck in the back of her shirt so when it came to doing the bees, one particularly large bee came and stung her right on the behind! The woman screamed and started whacking the bees until many lay dead. By now she didn’t even have to think.. she collected the dead bees and threw them in the lion cage before going home for a quiet evening.

The next day there was a new lion in the lion cage. The new lion said to the other lions “so what’s the food like here??” The other lions responded...

“Actually it’s quite good. Yesterday we had FISH, CHIMPS and MUSHY BEES!”

My dad is really proud of this one. It's the only joke he's ever told that's been funny enough to make somebody laugh so hard that they spit out of their nose. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for this joke, so let me give you some context first:

He's been in a motorcycle accident (hit and run by an illegal immigrant), and had to have most of his vertebrae fused. They use titanium rods to hold your back from bending, so as you can imagine its kind of a major operation. His doctor prescribed a year (or longer if needed) of massage therapy, which he was thankful for. Twice a week he went in to a small clinic for a few hours at a time, and usually had the same masseuse. Let's call her Marge.

After four months of therapy they of course got to know each other very well. He was always faithful to my mother, but he was good friends with Marge. Their conversations range all the way from baseball to differentials, and everything stays platonic.

Here's where the story begins:

During a massage, they are having an energetic conversation, the time comes where he turns onto his back so that she can get to his knee ligaments (chainsawed his kneecap a few years prior, doc said may as well get there too). She goes at it like normal, and the conversation continues. Now here comes the part that made my dad wait to tell me this until recently: The "stimulation" in his knee for some reason, on that day out of all others, triggered a reflexive erection. There was nothing he could do to stop it.

The conversation goes quiet. Marge notices, but doesn't say a word. She remains professional. She continues working. My dad is more embarrassed than he's ever been. Several minutes of silence pass, and my dad cant take it anymore.

"Marge," he says, "I think we need to talk about the elephant in the room."

He raises his head to look down the table at her. He glances at it, then back to her. With a slight shake of his head he says:

"Wait nevermind, it's only his trunk"

... and there was a gorgeous redhead sitting at the next table. He had been checking her out since he sat down, but lacked the nerve to talk with her.

Suddenly she sneezed, and her glass eye came flying out of its socket towards the man. He reflexively reached out, grabbed it out of the air, and handed it back.

'Oh my, I am so sorry,' the woman said, as she popped her eye back in place. 'Let me buy your dinner to make it up to you.'

They enjoyed a wonderful dinner together, and afterwards they went to the theater followed by drinks. They talked, they laughed, she shared her deepest dreams and he shared his. She listened to him with interest.

After paying for everything, she asked him if he would like to come to her place for a nightcap and stay for breakfast. They had a wonderful, wonderful time.

The next morning, she cooked a gourmet meal with all the trimmings. The guy was amazed. Everything had been so incredible!

'You know,' he said, 'you are the perfect woman. Are you this nice to every guy you meet?'

'No,' she replies. 'You just happened to catch my eye.'

So, I'm a Spanish professor, and I gave a final exam this morning. One of the last parts was that students had to write a paragraph using reflexive verbs in which they describe their daily routine. Since the class only had nine students in it, I told them that if they wanted to wait, I would grade their exams for them and tell them their class grade.

It was an open-book final exam (11 pages long), so I was in my office, and a graduating senior finished first and gave me her exam. When I got to her paragraph, I saw that she had written in Spanish that every day she woke up, got up, took a shower, got dressed, brushed her teeth, ate breakfast, and then she and her friend Emmy went horseback riding. Now, I knew that she didn't go horseback riding, ever, but that it was vocabulary from the previous chapter. The following conversation ensued:

Me: Horseback riding? Really?
Her: Yep!
Me: Every day?
Her: Yep!
Me: Every single day?
Her: Sí, Señor.
Me: I guess you could call it a stable routine then.

I have written this book to sweep away all misunderstandings about the crafty art of punnery and to convince you that the pun is well worth celebrating.... After all, the pun is mightier than the sword, and these days you are much more likely to run into a pun than into a sword. [A pun is a witticism involving the playful use of a word in different senses, or of words which differ in meaning but sound alike.]

Scoffing at puns seems to be a conditioned reflex, and through the centuries a steady barrage of libel and slander has been aimed at the practice of punning. Nearly three hundred years ago John Dennis sneered, “A pun is the lowest form of wit,” a charge that has been butted and rebutted by a mighty line of pundits and punheads.

Henry Erskine, for example, has protested that if a pun is the lowest form of wit, “It is, therefore, the foundation of all wit.” Oscar Levant has added a tag line: “A pun is the lowest form of humor—when you don’t think of it first.” John Crosbie and Bob Davies have responded to Dennis with hot, cross puns: “...If someone complains that punning is the lowest form of humor you can tell them that poetry is verse.”

Samuel Johnson, the eighteenth century self-appointed custodian of the English language, once thundered, “To trifle with the vocabulary which is the vehicle of social intercourse is to tamper with the currency of human intelligence. He who would violate the sanctities of his mother tongue would invade the recesses of the national till without remorse... ”

Joseph Addison pronounced that the seeds of punning are in the minds of all men, and tho’ they may be subdued by reason, reflection, and good sense, they will be very apt to shoot up in the greatest genius, that which is not broken and cultivated by the rules of art.

Far from being invertebrate, the inveterate punster is a brave entertainer. He or she loves to create a three-ring circus of words: words clowning, words teetering on tightropes, words swinging from tent tops, words thrusting their head into the mouths of lions. Punnery can be highly entertaining, but it is always a risky business. The humor can fall on its face, it can lose its balance and plunge into the sawdust, or it can be decapitated by the snapping shut of jaws. While circus performers often receive laughter or applause for their efforts, punsters often draw an obligatory groan for theirs. But the fact that most people groan at, rather than laugh at, puns doesn’t mean that the punnery isn’t fu

Me-Did you catch a cold? Him- I dont have the reflexes for that.

We have a new baby. It was bed time, and he woke up, and she was a little upset about it, he was tired and crabby.

I rubbed his head and kissed him thrice between the eyes, forcing a blink reflex, from which his eyes didn't open.

"I am the baby kiss-perer!"

Today my boss, who is white, was talking to our book keeper tell her that he was going home for the dad because he is feeling sick. The book keeper told him yeah you look bad you have no color in your face. With lighting fast dad reflexes he quiped, "that's be cause you're looking at these guys all day"

Me and my coworker are both black and groaned appropriately.

Background: Head on a swivel = slang for "quick reflexes", more or less.

So some of us were taking a water break on the bench, when I spotted a wild baseball traveling right for my head going about 80 mph out of the corner of my eye. I lifted my glove and caught it in the most nonchalant way I could.

Team mate: Wow dude, way to keep your head on a swivel.

Me: Oh, no, my head is on a neck.

Team mate: blank stare

He really gets a kick out of it.

I really get a kick out of it.