Beneath You Puns

I wrote a book about basements.

It made the Best Cellars list! :D

When we moved to our current home, we were going a little crazy from the long drive and started personifying random things along the way that had names posted, (the street named Kirk, a Church named Baptis because the t fell off, and a bridge named after a Carl Woodard). Ever since, (almost a year now) the 5 kids and my wife all say hi to Kirk and Carl on the way home, each in their own way. I, however, being the Dad, use every opportunity to not speak to Carl... Instead I give dad-joke reasons why I refuse.

"Carl and I had a fight. He thinks it's just water under the bridge, but I can't get over it." My oldest daughter said, "Dad, come on, you should forgive Carl." My answer, "No, it's beneath me." My youngest daughter asks, "Dad, why don't you say hi to Carl?" My answer, "He makes me cross."

The friar puts a sign outside that said ‘bell ringer wanted, tryouts Saturday morning’

Saturday morning rolls around, and there were three people lined up out front of the church waiting to try to ring the bell. A tall, muscular man, a skinnier, frail man, and an average sized man.

The friar took them all up one at a time and handed them the hammer to hit the church bells with.

The muscular man grabbed the hammer in one hand, slammed it into the bell, and nearly shattered both with the force behind the swing. The friar said that they’ll have to keep looking.

The frail man could barley pick up the hammer. He swung it pitifully, and managed to ting the bell. The friar just shook his head and chuckled, thanking the man for coming.

The average sized man refused the hammer. Before the friar could question it, the man reared his head back and slammed it into the bell, producing a ring of such pure tone and quality it brought a tear to the friar’s eye. While he was wiping the tear from his face, the man, stumbling from the impact of skull to bell, accidentally tripped and fell off the bell tower to his death.

Well, the townsfolk had heard the beautiful bell, and a small crowd had gathered beneath the bell tower around the man’s body.

Collectively, they said “Who is he Friar? What happened?”

The friar shook his head sadly and said

“I don’t know, but his face rings a bell”

BUT IT ISN’T OVER CAUSE THEY STILL NEED A BELL RINGEE ROUND TWO KIDDOS HERE WE GO!!

So the next morning, when the friar opened the doors in the morning, a man approached him and said “Friar, you don’t know me, but the man who died yesterday was my brother. I’d be honored if you’d let me ring the bell today in his honor.”

The friar nodded and let the new man up the bell tower, handing him the hammer.

With a nightly swing, the man slammed the bell, producing again a high quality ringing tone. Unfortunately, he slipped while off balance and fell off the bell tower too and died.

Again, people were gathered around and they all asked as one “Who is he, Friar, what happened?”

The friar looked at them all in turn and said “I don’t know, but he’s a dead ringer for his brother”

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

There was, for instance, the time he conducted a crew of new S.A.R.H. (Society for the Aesthetic Rearrangement of History -BJ) recruits – all from late twentieth-century Terra – on a training study of Carter’s World, a newly established agricultural colony attempting to support itself by the export of edible nuts. Barely into their second generation, and having yet to show a profit, the colonists were technologically backward. Nevertheless, they showed a surprising ingenuity in the use of their few advantages. It was this resourcefulness that Feghoot was demonstrating to his rookies.

“Look at the perfection with which these streets are graded”, exclaimed one student. “Earth-moving machinery on this scale is strictly high technology stuff. How can they do it?”

“A new alleyway is being constructed, nearby”, said Feghoot. “Let us walk that way while I explain.” As they strolled, he told his students that countless centuries before, the Carter’s World system had been inhabited by a now-vanished race of giants. This very planet had served them for a nursery, and among the many artifacts they had left were thousands of childrens blocks, immense and precision-cut. You simply jack one up onto logs, bring it where you want it, put collapsible jacks underneath, snake out the logs, spread soil more or less evenly beneath, and collapse the jacks.

“I see”, said the student. “It’s not graded road at all; its a simple hammered-earth base.”

“That’s right,” Feghoot went on smoothly. “You just hit the road jack and don’t come back no mo.”

His students registered dismay and anguish.

“Isn’t that right, old-timer?,” Feghoot demanded of an ancient Carterian standing by the mouth of the newly completed alley they had just reached.

“Ahm afraid not, suh”, said the senior citizen, and the students giggled at Feghoots discomfiture. “Oh, we used to do it that way, but it was far too much trouble. It’s the soil heah. You see, the very same soil which produced our famous cashews is so high in clay content that a child could roll out a road of it. Then, we simply use a system of lenses to bake it into hardness. Ahve just completed this alley mahself, and ahm just a retired professor of Sports History, much too old and feeble to handle hydraulic jacks.

“So you see,” he finished, eyes twinkling, “Mah hammered alley is really cashews clay.”

Howls of agony rose from the students, but Feghoot never hesitated. “And he”, he said, turning to his students, “is clearly the gradi

The shop owner directs him to a 1,500$ parrot who can sing Christmas carols. The man doesnt believe the store owner and asks him for proof before dropping the 1,500. The store owner locks the doors and escorts the man to the back of the store and tells him “This is a very special parrot, before he sings you must warm him up by holding a lit match 12 inches beneath.” He then takes out a match, lights it and holds it a rulers length beneath the parrot. After a few moments the parrot starts sining “jingle bells” in the tone of Frank Sinatra. Thinking this might be some cheap parlor trick he asks for several more demonstrations.. “Rudolph” “Frosty the Snowman” “Drummer Boy” even “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” in the best impersonations he’s ever heard! The man gladly hands over the cash and rushes home to amaze his wife. He holds the match a rulers length and nothing. The wife laughingly says he got ripped off. “ No no honey this works watch” he does it again only holding it half a rulers length this time and still nothing! The wife, laughing hysterically, starts going back upstairs. “NO honey it really works watch!” “Im going to bed, Merry Christmas” says the wife as she turns to head up the stairs. “WAIT Honey, one more time, please!” He pulls out another match, this time holding it three inches under the parrot who then squawks out “CHESTNUTS ROASTING ON AN OPEN FIRE”

What happens if you are in a plane above Los Angeles, and when you look out the window there are no clouds beneath you?U C L A

In the not too distant future, web censorship is pervasive; speech and freedom are strangers to one another; while pirates sail the seas with impunity, digital pirates are incarcerated by the busload.

Anyone who speaks out against this ban on open-dialogue or the free-sharing-of-ideas is ground down and hidden away, and the resistance is loosing its will.

A small group of contributors to reddit, huddled together in a bunker beneath barely-waving flags of Snoo, worked tirelessly to repost new ideas from around the internet, to release ideas from their chains, and make speech free ... again!

But it was not to be - a gang of the governments anti-piracy enforcers descended on this, the last bastion of humankind's will to share-freely. Arriving in an armored bus, ten shock-troopers breached the bunker and it looked like the day was lost.

Fortunately for us all, one brave redditor led the collective out a back entrance and they circled to the driveway. This leader told the other redditors to wait in the bushes while he overpowered the one soldier left guarding the transport. There was a flash of movement, a crack from a fallen branch as it struck the guard, and then, stolen keys in hand, the hero revved the engine and told the redditors to pile in.

He had to will himself ignore the gas gauge as he floored the accelerator on the 25,000 pound ticket to freedom - there was only survival or defeat, and nothing in between. Sirens came alive behind him as he rushed for the border to the promised land, to the Free-North.

As the engine begins to cough, the titanic weight of the transport cleaves the barricades asunder and the pursuing vehichles have to hard-brake to avoid skidding beyond their corrupt jurisdiction. Both exhausted and elated, the redditors follow their hero to the freedom promised by their new surroundings ... but their peril is not yet passed.

Though most of the pirate-hunters glower from the south-side of the border, one special agent has crossed over and is speaking with the border guards. The tension is thick. A long-faced guard turns to the newcomers, clearly troubled by what he must do.

"Folks," he says, a pained look on his kindly face, "I'm sorry, to do this, don't cha' know, but I got no choice, eh!"

Confused, the redditors look to one another, and tremble as they notice the agent's smug expression, greedy eyes fixed on the leader of the exodus.

"Look here, now, you are all welcome here, of course, and since speech is free here, we are

Back in the 90s, I remember playing some N64 after school when my dad came home from work. He comes into the living room and asks me what's up and, as a teen, I say "nuthin" and keep playing while he just stands there. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see he's looking at me with a stupid grin on his face that's he's trying to suppress poorly. Finally, he asks me to pause the game. I turn to him and he asks "You want a Hertz donut?" I obviously know this joke, but to make it worse, he's already making a fist, ready at his side. I roll my eyes and say "No, I do not want a Hertz donut." He just relaxes his hand and says surprised "Oh, you don't? You sure?" I say I'm sure and he says okay and walks back out to his car, leaving me to return to my GoldenEye. A few seconds later, he comes strolling back in the room, with a box of a dozen donuts in his hand, while he's eating one, with the same stupid grin on his face. On the box of donuts, "Dunkin" has been crudely crossed out and Hertz written beneath it in Sharpie marker. He walks into the kitchen saying "Guess you won't be having these Hertz donuts!" I'm in awe. I follow him into the kitchen and he finally relents and lets me take a donut. I ask him "So, you bought these donuts, and just put this joke together on the way home?" He says he thought of the joke earlier in the day at work and had to buy the donuts for the bit. I start laughing hysterically thinking about him sitting at work itching to leave to pull this off. As we sit there, quietly eating these donuts, he breaks the silence with a mouth full of donut, with "Had to stop at CVS to pick up a Sharpie too." I almost choked on the donut jimmies.

TLDR: Dad offered a Hertz donut, should've taken him up on it.

'Here right, I was walking home from the pub last weekend and you know what I'm like when I'm drunk, singing to myself and stumbling all over the place haha. So I walked up the back road, yano the one with trees and bushes on either side of the road and I was singing away, loving life.

Then all of a sudden this figure dressed in black appeared, I couldn't really make out what it was. I got a bit closer and it ran at me, now you know I'm a hard man but it scared the life out of me! This weird looking man looked up from beneath a dark cloak thing and said 'I AM THE PRINCE OF DARKNESS' so dad goes 'awk for fuck sake, why didn't you say. I'm Marty, I married your sister.''

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

The snacking nut millions around the world is actually pronounced 'amond' and not 'almond'. I found this out recently when visiting family friends who own an amond orchard in CA.

I asked the owner why they are supposed to be called amonds and not almonds and he said it has to do with the harvesting process. See what they do is spread a large tarp out beneath the almond tree. Then they bring in a machine that attaches to the trunk. This machine is very specialized and is designed to create prolonged and intense vibrations, similar to the tool that is used to level/even out concrete. Once the machine is attached to the almond tree it is turned out. The intense vibrations in the trunk lead to the amonds falling out of the tree and onto the tarp. You see, the machine "shook the L out of em!"