An old man lay dying under the ceiling fan which had the bearing of a military helicopter airily surveying the aftermath of a natural disaster.

Surrounded by his son, his twin daughters and a haggard-looking nurse who looked about ready to end it all if only she could find the bloody switch, he was finally breathing his last.

His son, who loved him dearly and wasn't at all sure if he had been cut out of the will or not, burst into tears at the plight of a man who would look more at home in a red woolly outfit than he ever could in drab, white linen.

"I do not wish to die today, Anthony", he intoned fixing his gaze slightly above his son's left shoulder, "there is something you must do to save me."

"Tell me what to do dad, I can't bear to look at you this way", cried Anthony.

"There is a land, not far from here, where no one ever dies. It is not for dying you see. That is where I must go."

"Where is this place father? Tell me, and I shall take you to it."

"Take me there now", he said faintly as if in great pain, "Take me to, The Living Room."

👍︎ 4k
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📅︎ May 02 2018
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We had an IDEA...

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

... keep reading on reddit ➡

👍︎ 15
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👤︎ u/Rocknocker
📅︎ Jul 30 2019
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There's a little known country in central Europe that is ruled by a monarchy...

Not many people are aware of its existence but I assure that it is there all the same. The king of this little land faces a lot of difficulty. He wants to make his kingdom into a sovereign nation but unfortunately they do not have the infrastructure, population, or economy to do so. In fact, this small state is only known for a single export. Thanks to their proximity to some of the finest gold and other metals in the world but total lack of an ability to process those metals on a mass scale, they have been left with only one option. You know the saying; when life hands you lemons, make lemonade. Make lemonade they did. This tiny territory is renowned for creating the highest quality watches in the world. No expense is spared and their elite group of craftsmen train for their entire lives from childhood to produce these terrific timepieces. Men of great wealth and taste have been known to trade entire fortunes for just a single one of these watches; that is how valuable they are.

The king knows this and he knows that only a small portion of his populace can ever hope to become one of the respected elite, let alone hold one of their masterpieces in their own hands. Being a very just and fair man, the king ordered the most senior watchmaker in the land to create something the likes of which had never been seen. A watch of such great craftsmanship so as to be above monetary value. The man labored long and hard for many nights to produce the king's watch. When he at last presented the completed work to his lord - in front of the entire nation, no less - he was met with thunderous applause and a warm embrace. He had done it! The king then made a shocking announcement.

"This masterpiece belongs to my people!"

When the roaring of the crowd died down he continued.

"This watch shall be a symbol of my love for all of you. Though I rule over you with supreme authority I do not wish a single one of you to feel that you do not have a voice in the ruling of this nation. From this day on let anyone who doubts my decisions or questions my judgment wear this watch and stand as my equal to voice their concerns. Should even a single one of you think me unfair or wrong in any matter then simply come to my castle and I will present you this token of good faith."

The king made good on his word and from that day on all citizens knew they held the right to challenge their king's rulings. Over time the watch became a symbol of fairness throughout the land. Anyone who wore it

... keep reading on reddit ➡

👍︎ 86
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📅︎ Jul 06 2016
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24 Feb 2017, Revised Rules and meta-state of /r/puns

Hello ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking.

I've been very busy with personal stuff for the past few weeks, so I've let this subreddit drift unattended. Reading some of the reports and comments after coming back makes me realize that my absence led to some unwanted events happening!


Let's start with the fun stuff: We now have a new fancy rulebook! If you suspect a post of breaking these rules, feel free to report it in the relevant category, or use (8) other if you suspect it to slip through the cracks of one of the other rules.

Secondly, as of right now, we do not have an explicit rule forbidding inflammatory subjects like race, politics, etc, as the rest of reddit seems to be melting down, but so far we remain unscathed. I wish to let you all crack puns like adults without having to put on training wheels, but if any of the above subjects become a problem then I will swiftly revisit this. Consider this a privilege, not a right, and do try to avoid abusing it! Piggybacking off this, any post that is more 'lewd' than PG should be NSFW tagged. If it is inappropriate for an office setting, I will manually NSFW it, and repeat offenders will have consequences.

Third, you can now request puns! start a self post with [request] and put in whatever information is necessary, such as "[request] puns about clocks".


I'll keep this post stickied for about a week or so, to keep it as a nice feedback net, and we can adjust rules, add/delete/modify them as needed, to keep our subreddit of lovely puns in peak condition!

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👤︎ u/KetoSaiba
📅︎ Feb 24 2017
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Last Summer With My Girlfriend

Last summer, my girlfriend and I went camping. One of the days, we were having lunch by a river (a kind of a picnic sort of thing). Now, I talk a lot when I eat, so she finished eating waaaaay before I did. Once she was finished, she took to the water to cool off while I continued munching away.

Now, I guess she must have slipped or something, because all of a sudden I heard a cry and she was just gone. Washed away. I saw her head bob above the surface probably 20 yards downstream, and moving fast towards some rapids (probably 100-150 yards away). So I'm pretty panicked at this point, but she manages to grab onto a low-hanging branch (just like in a movie or something). She's coughing and sputtering and hollering for help, trying to keep a grip on the branch.

So, I set down my avocado I'd been snacking on and walked out into the water. "hurry! I can't hold on much longer," she's yelling. I kept walking towards her, but the bottom of the river was so muddy that it was probably pretty slow. She started to get angry with me "SWIM over here! Why are you walking? Please hurry!" She yelled, with great urgency. All in all, it took me probably 8 minutes to cover the 80 yards or so to get to her. After I rescued her, she was super mad for some reason. She was all "I almost died, why were you going so slow? Who does that? What's wrong with you?"

"Well," I said. "Good things are worth wading for."

👍︎ 38
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👤︎ u/TheRiz89
📅︎ Jan 07 2014
🚨︎ report
A compass, a cough drop, and a match.

As a Boy Scout, we would camp a lot and go on hikes.

One night, we had to do a night hike, alone, for a merit badge. I had left the campsite about an hour earlier and a terrible storm rolled in. The sky opened up and the ground was quickly saturated. I tried to continue my hike for another few minutes, but it got cold and I was chilled and soaked to the bone, so I decided to try to head back to camp.

Lightning was starting to crackle above me, so I thought I should try to take a shortcut to make my hike back quicker. I pulled out my compass and found my direction, but the rain made it impossible to see more than five feet in front of me.

I was looking down at my compass, not paying any attention to where I was going, and suddenly felt weightless. The feeling didn't last long as I thumped down on slippery earth a second later.

I had fallen onto a ledge on the side of a rather steep cliff, the bottom of which was at least fifty feet down.

I sat there, contemplating on how to get back up this cliff as water rolled over the edge ten feet above me. There was nothing to grab onto to pull myself up. I was stuck there.

After a few minutes, I noticed the little ledge I was standing on was slowly getting smaller. The water was coming down so hard it was eroding the tiny bit of safety I had.

I dug through my pockets, thinking maybe I had something, anything, to help me out of my precarious situation. All I had was my compass, a cough drop, and a match. I was screwed.

So, I sat there, watching the edge of the ledge I was on get closer and closer to my feet, when suddenly I felt something pushing on my back.

I turned slightly and saw a wooden box sticking out of the cliff behind me. It was working its way out of the side, the rain surely helping it along. I tried to move away from it, but the ledge wasn't very wide and the box kept coming out, pushing me farther to the weak and failing edge.

As more of the box came out, to my horror, I realized it was a coffin! I had no idea how old it was, but it looked rather rotten. All I could think of was being pushed off this ledge, and the rotten coffin breaking and dropping a skeleton onto my broken and battered body at the bottom.

The coffin crept closer, my foot began to slip. I grabbed onto a root that was sticking out of the cliffside and dug in my pocket once more.

I hurriedly tore the wrapper off the cough drop and stuck it in my mouth. It stopped the coffin.

This joke has been told to me

... keep reading on reddit ➡

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📅︎ Nov 13 2014
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Why are you complaining?

My dad said this last summer. We were in Mexico, and there was huge flocks of birds swarming above us that day. My stepmom was out on our little porch, reading fifty shades of grey. Suddenly she storms in all huffy and goes up to my dad who was in the kitchen.

Dad: What's up with you?

Stepmom: A fucking bird SHAT on my book! Look! (Sure enough, there was.)

My dad, without missing a beat: Well why are you complaining? Now you got an extra shade of grey!

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👤︎ u/mini5
📅︎ Jan 30 2014
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The hidden puns of LexisNexis

Years ago I used to use a LexisNexis database of companies that would give corporate information like name, address, and general business description. While most of them were pretty bland, there were a bunch of them with some really cheesy puns, and over a few years I built quite a collection.

Today I share with you "NEXIS IS RIDICULOUS.txt":

  • Bucyrus International caters to those who mine their own business.
  • It would be logical for Mr. Spock to boldly go to Vulcan International for rubber products. He might even live long and prosper -- in comfortable shoes.
  • What do manufacturer Electro-Motive Diesel (EMD) and 1970s band Grand Funk Railroad have in common? They both want you to do the locomotion!
  • Peter Piper can pick more than a peck of peppers or pickles from B&G Foods.
  • Toray Plastics America could sing "foam, foam on the range, where the polyester and polypropylene materials are made" all day.
  • Break out the Tums, because things are awfully gassy over at Air Liquide America.
  • If a tree falls in a Weyerhaeuser forest, someone is there to hear it -- and he has a chainsaw.
  • Although not a pushover, you can walk all over Wilsonart International.
  • Here's a HEICO haiku: HEICO companies/ Providing for jet engines/ In flight or on land.
  • American Italian Pasta Company (AIPC) uses its noodle in many different ways.
  • The golf industry doesn't mind when Aldila gives it the shaft.
  • Rat-a-tat-tat and a ringa-ding-ding. What's that? Answer: The sounds emanating from Pearl, one of the world's foremost makers of drums and other percussion and musical instruments.
  • Saint-Gobain Ceramics & Plastics deals powders and crystal, but there's no need to call the cops.
  • Pamida Stores Operating Company offers more small-town values than a bandwagon of Republicans on the campaign trail.
  • Like a tight end, offshore drilling contractor Transocean dreams of going deep but doesn't mind eating a little mud.
  • Rittal me this, Batman!
  • Utility Trailer Manufacturing is spreading its own brand of reefer madness.
  • Who is the Fresh Prince of Sullair?
  • If GrafTech International were a bard, it could wax poetic in an ode to the electrode.
  • When it comes to adhesives and vibration control products, LORD knows.
  • You might say that Deere & Company enjoys its customers going to seed.
  • Pfizer pfabricates pfarmaceuticals pfor quite a pfew inpfirmities.
  • Stripping is OK at Spraylat.
  • Don't think Seton is
... keep reading on reddit ➡

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📅︎ Feb 22 2016
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The tale of Ivan Ivanavich (Long)

There once was a man from the Ukraine named Ivan Ivanavich. Now Ivan and his family were dirt poor, in fact they were so poor, that they had to sell the cockroaches and rats they found in their hovel to make some spare change to to feed their many family members. One day, Ivan decided it was time to travel to the United States to try and have a better life and miraculously he managed to get aboard a ship to the States. Now his journey on this ship was miserable, he was down in the bowels of the ship, which was flooded with rats and feces, but he hunkered down and gave it his all to survive this terrible journey. finally, one day he hears commotion above, they had arrived at last. Ivan walks up to the topside of the old ship and sees the New York Harbor. He stands there amazed seeing such a beautiful sight. Ivan starts his life in New York but he doesn't have a significantly better life than the one he left behind. Nobody is interested in hiring immigrants but eventually he lands himself a gig of selling old newspapers. He would go through garbage cans to find old papers and would sell them to people in the poorer part of town. He makes slightly more spare change, but not really enough to live a better life. In his spare time, which he had plenty, he decides to start free diving in the bay. He goes there each day, and started to get really good at it. One day, an owner of a Circus spots him diving and is amazed at how good he is. He decides to offer Ivan a job at his circus doing performance diving. Ivan eagerly accepts and begins his career as a circus member performing amazing high jumps into really small containers of water. After a few months of doing this he suggests to the owner one amazing jump to wow everyone and put his circus on top of the entertainment world. The owner contemplates this and eventually agrees. He rents a ship much like the one Ivan arrived in and placed the smallest container yet. The radio and tv crews, journalist all arrive to spectate the event of a lifetime. The hour arrives and Ivan begins his climb up a massive lighthouse on the edge of the cliff, and the ship is positioned into place beneath him. Ivan is very nervous but decides it's go time, and jumps from the massive lighthouse. As Ivan falls, he takes perfect form heading straight towards his target. As he dives a sudden wave pushes the ship ever slightly throwing off the careful alignment. Ivan hits the deck and goes straight through the top of the ship. The spectato

... keep reading on reddit ➡

👍︎ 3
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👤︎ u/Entophreak
📅︎ Jan 31 2017
🚨︎ report
"Let's take a vote"

For as long as I can remember, whenever dad wanted to make a trivial decision, he would say something along the lines of this:

Dad: "Who thinks I should give you guys chores today? Say 'I' if you want chores"

My sister and me: [silence]

Dad: "Who thinks I should not give you guys chores? Say 'no'"

My sister and me both: "No"

Dad: "Well, the eyes are above the nose, so it's time to do dishes."

And we all would groan and dad giggled.

👍︎ 27
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📅︎ Nov 18 2013
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New Year's Dadjoke

Some friends and I got together and went to a pub to celebrate the turning of the year.

We ordered our food and drinks a few minutes before 12am. As it struck midnight, the entire bar celebrated, and all the waitresses took a break and hugged and wished each other.

It took them a while to get back to serving all the orders. When our waitress finally brought our order, it was well past midnight.

At this point I couldn't stop giggling like a little school girl, but my friends gave me a look of disapproval.

As she was putting the dishes on the table, I said to her, "What took you so long? We've been waiting all year".

Dead silence.

One out my friends looks down in shame, the other looked to the waitress, waiting for her reaction.

She had frozen, her arm holding the dish above the table. Without looking directly at me, she said in dry voice "good one".

But as she put the remainder of the order on the table and turned away, I saw a smile on her face.

This has been a high point for me all year long.

👍︎ 7
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📅︎ Jan 01 2015
🚨︎ report

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