Cottage Life Puns

His best friend, Roy, was known around town for having an adventurous streak that a small town just couldn't satisfy. Roy yearned to travel the world, to rub shoulders with the well-to-do, and to squeeze every drop of excitement he could out of life. While most young folk in town, my grandpa included, were resigned to their lot, Roy was driven by his dream. He worked incredibly hard, taking every hired-hand and handy-man job he could find. He would walk five miles each way to clean a gutter if there was a nickel to be made. His hometown was always spotless, because Roy would pick up every glass bottle he saw to get the deposit back, and every can he found would get turned in for recycling.

The years stretched on. Grandpa settled down with his high school sweetheart in a one-room cottage and had my dad, and not much else. Roy kept hurrying from one job to the next, never spending a dime on a date. Everyone would just roll their eyes and quietly gossip about how poor Roy's obsession was robbing him of a real life.

One day, Roy showed up at Grandpa's house, all decked out in a brand new khaki safari kit, complete with helmet, binoculars, and elephant gun, and announced that he had finally saved up enough for passage to Africa to go big game hunting. He was especially proud of the fine leather boots he was sporting. "Indestructable" he called them, totally impenetrable to water, wind, and snow. No trench-foot for him while he tracked rhinos on the savannah!

Grandpa congratulated Roy on his achievement and wished him bon voyage. Over the next three months, the town felt Roy's absence. Litter lay where it fell, gutters overflowed in heavy rain, small-time farmers rose that bit earlier and bedded that bit later to cover the work Roy used to help with. Of course, the gossipers just turned their chat from how Roy needed a dose of reality to how thoughtless it was of him to just up and leave. Most folks were convinced Roy was gone for good. After all, how could he come back from such a high-falutin' adventure to his tiny, no-account hometown?

But return Roy did, and everyone crowded around at the bar to hear his account of his safari. To their surprise, Roy told them that, for all the time he had been away, he only bagged one trophy that was currently on a slow boat back. It turned out, once Roy got a close-up look at the elephants, rhinos, giraffes, gazelles, and all the fine animals of the African savannah, he lost all heart for hunting. He just couldn't imagi

This is the story of Jack and the Beanstalk, after the story ends. After chopping down the beanstalk, Jack realizes that he’s actually pretty damn good with an axe, and casual vegetative vandalism really struck his fancy, so he began chopping down other trees for a living. He became a traveling woodsman, and he enjoyed many years of his simple life of manual labor.

One day, as he chops wood, he hears screams from a nearby cottage. Hurriedly breaking in (because recall: jack has no problem with entering houses uninvited), he sees a cross dressing lycanthrope attempting to devour a little girl dressed all in red and her little grandmother too. Wielding his trusty axe, Jack murdered yet another fantasy creature, and safely led Little Red all the way back home. Answering the door was a beautiful woman of around his age. After sending Little Red to bed, the two of them talked for hours.

One thing led to another, and a year later they were married with a child on the way. They had a beautiful little boy named Jack Junior who followed in his father’s steps to become a woodsman. This was fortunate, because as Junior grew up, Jack was feeling the pain of his previous adventures. An old back injury from jumping from the beanstalk was haunting him, and over time his posture grew more and more hunched. He had a tough time working, but at least Junior was becoming a strapping young man.

One day, Jack and Junior took the long road to the grandmothers place to bring her a meal, just like that fateful trio Red took so many years ago. When they arrived, the grandmother greeted them cheerily, welcoming them in and making conversation. “Oh Junior,” she said, “you’ve grown into such a handsome and strong young man. It’s so kind of you to handle all the work so your poor father, with his bad back and all, doesn’t have to. Why don’t you have a girlfriend yet?” Junior hesitated. “Well Grandma,” he replied. “It’s because... I’m gay”. The close-minded, set-in-her-ways grandma’s expression became stormy. She pulled poor hunched-over Jack into adjacent room, and whispered angrily: “Jack, your life is a mess! Your posture is terrible and your son isn’t giving me any grandsons!” Jack replied: “Ma, we’re happy, you can’t just-“ But she interrupted. “No excuses!” She snapped. “You need to straighten your lumbar, Jack!”