Eyes Wide Open Puns

they must be vigilant, something fishy around there...

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

All offenses aside, I’m originally from Britain and we make fun of the Irish ALL the time.

So an Irishman stumbles upon a genie’s lamp and says to himself “ooh laddy what have we found here? I tink I’ll give it a rub to see if a genie appears!”

So he does, and lo, a puff of blue smoke comes pouring out of the spout, billows into the air and the genie’s form becomes solid. It speaks, “Oh master of the lamp, I am your genie and I grant you three wishes.”

The Irishman’s eyes are wide open with glee, his cheeks and nose red with fire, he shouts “tree wishes?! That’s just brilliant!” For me first wish, I’ll have a bottle of whiskey that never runs dry.”

The genie, eyes rolling, clicks his fingers and POOF a nice big bottle of whiskey appears before the Irishman. “Well I tink we’ll have to put this to the test!” He snatches up the bottle, takes a long healthy swig, glug glug glug, and the bottle pops as he releases it from his lips, “Ahhhhhhhh!!!” And to his amazement as soon as the liquid in the bottle settled, it gave a large burping “bulp!”, released a large bubble, and when the bubble popped the bottle was full again. “WELL I’LL BE! THAT’S THE MOST INCREDIBLE TING!”

The genie, steadfastly unimpressed, reminded the Irishman “Master, I will bring you fortune, splendor, reputation, treasures beyond any imagination. You have two wishes remaining. What would master want for a wish?”

The Irishman looks to the genie and says “oh tat’s easy! I’ll have two more of these!”

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

Mr. Sterling Frogsen was desperate. After a few months of success, his bakery was beginning to flounder and running in the red. He was a proud man who was proud of starting his small business without asking for any help. But now times were tough and he had to face the fact that without a loan his bakery was doomed.

So he went to local bank but was disheartened to see that the loan officer was the notorious Patricia Wacomb, the hard-nosed banker who only agreed to sure bets and rarely took risks.

"Please, ma'am, I am in sore need of this loan! My bakery is only going through a temporary setback!" Normally such pleas fell on deaf ears, but today Patricia was feeling generous. Something about Mr. Frogsen moved her and she believed his plight.

"Mr. Frogsen, I would approve this loan, but this bank cannot afford to take any risks."

"Is there anything you can do, Ms. Wacomb? I am desperate!"

"Well, do you have any collateral?"

"Only this family heirloom," Sterling responded while handing Patricia his prized family treasure. Patricia was at a loss, however, for she had never seen anything like that before.

"Let me ask my manager," she responded as she showed her director the prized heirloom. His eyes opened wide in amazement as he told her,

"It's a knick-knack, Patty Wack, now give the Frog a loan!"

GF: "... and on Friday it's wide open from around 2 or 2:30 on."

The old man gets a glimmer in his eye.

GF's Dad: "I only go to the dentist when tooth hurty"

His hand goes up.

We high five.

Okay so where I stay it is unbelievably hot at the moment. We're already on the third heatwave of this summer so far. I came home one afternoon from work to find my roommate sitting at the island counter of the kitchen working on his laptop. He had all the windows and doors wide open and said it was way too hot to work in his room. So later, while I was visiting my parents for dinner, the discussion of the weather came up and I recounted the story with my roomate. My dad got that twinkle in his eyes and said: “Well, I guess if you can’t stand the heat, get into the kitchen.”

Wife was opening a roll of pizza dough and it popped open. She jumped and screeched then looked at me wide-eyed saying "That doesn't normally happen."

My reply:

"Dat reaction dough."

I think she hates me now.

Dad: Did you know that baseball is in the Bible? Me: You're lying. Dad: I shit you not. It's in Genesis. Here. (Pulls out a bible and opens to Genesis.) Genesis 1:1, "In the big inning." (Looks at me with his eyes opened wide and busts out laughing.)

I facepalmed, then laughed.