Directed Edge Puns

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

Once upon a time Quasimodo was growing old and wanted to retire. Before he could, he had to hire someone new to ring the bells of the Church of Notre Dame in his place. He placed an ad in the newspaper but only one man showed up for the interview. This man happened to have no arms. The man begged Quasimodo to give him a chance, and that despite his appearance he could indeed perform the duties of the job. Quasimodo eventually caved and gave him a chance. The next day at 1:00 sharp they met in the bell tower. The man with no arms takes a wide stance near the edge of the room and charges directly towards the bell at a dead sprint. He smacks the bell squarely with his head and it produces a wonderful sonorous ring. Pleased with the results, Quasimodo tells him that if he can continue to ring the bell for the rest of the day he has the job. 2:00 passes and the man with no arms headbuts the bell twice, at 3:00 three times, and on and on until at 12:00 he produces only 11 rings before he was so disoriented and concussed that he charges right past the bell, over the railing, and falls to his death. The next day when the police investigate the mysterious death of an unknown man with no arms Quasimodo was asked if he knew anything about the dead man. He told them " I don't know his name, but his face sure rings a bell"