Agile Puns

Because yesterday at around 7:30 pm a clown who was wearing a colourful sweatshirt, pulled out a pair of scissors and stared at me. Luckily I had enough agility and I pulled out a rock, because if I would have pulled out a paper, he would have won

Everyone knows the Pythagorean theorem, but few people know that Pythagoras was an avid and accomplished explorer who visited the new world before the Vikings or Columbus ever laid eyes on the continent. On one of his early visits he encountered a village and happened upon a woman, heavily pregnant sitting on the hide of a bear. He asked her what she was doing and she told him that she wanted to give birth on the hide so that her child would have the strength of a bear when he was born. As he walked further into the main part of the village he saw another woman, again quite pregnant sitting on the hide of a deer. When asked she replied that she wanted her child to have the grace and agility of a deer. Seeing a trend he was taken aback when he saw a very pregnant woman sitting on the hide of a hippopotamus. Surprised both at the choice and at the existence of such a creature, he wondered what she must wish for her child, but she replied that there just weren’t any other hides available for her so she took what she could get.

Many years later when he returned to the same village, he encountered the first woman and asked about her child. Was he as strong as a bear? She pointed him out and sure enough, her son was busy ripping a stump out of the ground with his hands, as strong as a bear! Amazed, he sought out the second woman, who pointed out her son, running through a field at great speed, as graceful and agile as a deer! Intrigued to say the least, Pythagoras sought the third woman. She pointed out her son, and he didn’t believe his eyes - he was both as strong as a bear and as graceful as a deer; a mountain of a man with grace and poise.

He wrote in his now-famous travel journal his amazing discovery; that the sons of the squaws on the two smaller hides are equal to that of the squaw on the hippopotamus.

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