Boil Point Puns

She wants me to simmer down!

She said "What's he doing? Is this normal??? It isn't even Easter".

I said "Oh him? That's Egg-Sell-Ent"

A man was recruited for a space colony

He had been posted to a planet 14 light-years from Sol. As his ship landed on the planet's glowing surface, he saw a car waiting for him.

"Welcome to Anti-Earth," The driver said, "don't worry we are going to change the name soon. I am here to take you to your quarters and show you the colony on the way."

They had been driving for a couple of minutes when the recruit saw glowing buildings far away.

"Why are the buildings shining like that?", he asked.

"Didn't they brief you about the colony?", the driver asked "We don't call it Anti-Earth for no reason, it's literally the opposite of Earth. Any element rare on Earth is as common as carbon (C) here, and interestingly carbon (C) doesn't occur naturally here. So we had to make good of what we had, the buildings are made of rare metals like radium (Ra) which glow in the dark."

After half an hour they arrived at what seemed the main highway, the road had a faint bluish glow and the sides were lined with metallic posts shining faintly in the double moonlight. They stopped near a small dilapidated shack with the words "COMMUNICATION OFFICE" crudely etched on the walls.

"This is your office. You are supposed to handle communications for the colony," the driver said. "We can't use any wireless communication as the high amount of radioactive gases in the atmosphere interferes with the signal, so we have to use a type of telegraph instead. Come on, I'll show you our most important resource."

They walked a bit till they reached a plantation full of bizarre trees. Some were made of precious metals, some of common earth metals and some of them were glowing radioactively.

"This is the plantation for building the posts. We brought these seeds from Earth and planted them, apparently as they couldn't get the conventional elements they just used what the soil contained. We just sell the gold (Au), silver (Ag) and platinum (Pt) trees to Earth, the iron (Fe) and aluminium (Al) are used for constructing equipment and there are some pretty rare elements like uranium (U) and astatine (At) (which is the rarest element on Earth) which are used for scientific research. However, these aren't what we are here for."

The driver motioned him to follow him towards a small area of trees with a silvery sheen to them.

"These are made of rhenium (Re) one of the densest elements with one of the highest melting and boiling points. It is strong enough to withstand the toxic atmosphere and radioa

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

I mean it's 180°^(F) below the boiling point.

"Lexophile" is a word used to describe those that have a love for the use of words, such as "you can tune a piano, but you can't tuna fish", or "to write with a broken pencil is pointless." A competition to see who can come up with the best lexophiles is held every year in an undisclosed location. This year's winning submission is posted at the very end.

Here goes...

.. When fish are in schools, they sometimes take debate.

.. A thief who stole a calendar got twelve months.

.. When the smog lifts in Los Angeles U.C.L.A.

.. The batteries were given out free of charge.

.. A dentist and a manicurist married. They fought tooth and nail.

.. A will is a dead giveaway.

.. With her marriage, she got a new name and a dress.

.. A boiled egg is hard to beat.

.. When you've seen one shopping center you've seen a mall.

.. Police were summoned to a daycare center where a three-year-old was resisting a rest.

.. Did you hear about the fellow whose entire left side was cut off? He's all right now.

.. A bicycle can't stand alone; it's just two tired.

.. When a clock is hungry it goes back four seconds.

.. The guy who fell onto an upholstery machine is now fully recovered.

.. He had a photographic memory which was never developed.

.. When she saw her first strands of grey hair she thought she'd dye.

.. Acupuncture is a jab well done. That's the point of it.

And the cream of the twisted crop:

.. Those who get too big for their pants will be totally exposed in the end.

My son, who's 8 was making some tea and unloading the dishwasher. I offered to help him pour the boiling water from the teapot and he said, "I just wanted to do it by myself."

I replied with "Well, you can put up the dishes by yourself."

He pointed to a bowl on the counter and said, "Well you can put that up by yourself."

I said, "You wanted to do things by yourself, why don't you find a way?"

He said, "I can't! I'm not tall enough!!"

To which I replied, "Hmmm ... sounds like you're still faced with a lot of shortcomings."

Lame, I know, but it still made me chuckle, and that, in the end, is all that really matters.