First Strike Puns

People would routinely bring him bread in an attempt to get him to eat. What people don't understand though is that Gandhi was actually a very temperamental man, and prone to anger. So even when his friends and family were the ones bringing him bread, he would take it and hurl it at them, sometimes leaving bruises and welts. He justified it by saying it was all a part of his philosophy of naan-violence.

Back in the before times, when sit-down restaurants existed, I used to order boneless cheese sticks and would just throw the word "boneless" in front of any appetizer with 100% corniness. The purpose of this isn't to make a good joke. It's not a good joke. The purpose is to make my dining companions catch some cringe splash damage and want to crawl into a hole and die out of embarrassment for my being horribly corny.

But there is a real, deeper purpose that I've discovered entirely by accident. People, especially young people, are so self-conscious and worried about saying or doing something embarrassing that it taints a lot of social gatherings. They go to a restaurant and are afraid to speak up even when their order is blatantly wrong. They'll tip well even when the food took an hour to arrive and the server has disappeared into the corn stalks behind a baseball field. It takes 2 hours of hanging out together before some friends finally stop nitpicking themselves, uncomfortable in their own bodies and brains, feeling perpetually judged, and begin to relax. These are the kinds of people who go to sleep every night replaying cringey moments from high school. Their last thought of the day is when the Burger King girl said, "Enjoy your meal!" and they said, "Thanks, you too."

It takes 2 hours and/or a lot of booze before they're comfortable enough to take conversational risks and truly reveal themselves. But if I come right out of the gate with a really dumb joke, then we can cut to the chase. There's less danger because someone in the group already shot themselves in the foot, right off the bat. They pulled a pin on the cringe grenade and then jumped on it.

You cringe at my dumb joke and then we're over the hump. Someone has already done something pretty stupid, so go ahead and order the hubcap of nachos and a massive chocolate shake because nobody is going to judge you poorly while they're all judging me.

In terms of price negotiations (haggling), there is a psychological concept called "anchoring". You throw out the first number and all subsequent numbers are compared to that number. This is the same idea. We've already set the humor standard pretty low at "boneless cheese sticks", so you can say the dumbest shit you want and, as long as it's not worse than my cheesy joke, it won't matter.

This is why, when you were a teenager and your dad took you and some friends out, your dad made corny jokes. He knew they were corny jokes. You and your friends un

And they interviewed an applicant named Stan. Stan had no arms due to an accident so the hiring manager asked how he would ever be able to do the job.

"I'll show you",said Stan.

They walked up flight after flight of stairs to the Bell tower all the while the manager wondered how Stan would ever be able to do the job. His questions were soon answered when after reaching the Bell tower, Stan took off running striking the bell face first. Gooong goes the bell. Stan picks himself up, takes off running face first at the bell, Gooong.

"Hold, on. You'll hurt yourself."

"I'm tough," said Stan, " "and I really needed this job"

"Ok," said the manager, leaving Stan to do the job.

All day the bell rang on the hour correctly and the manager thought too soon that he had misjudged Stan. Finally, at six in the evening there were only three gongs, then a commotion. Going out to see what was going on he found Stan dead on the street below. Apparently he had become disoriented from head trauma and missed the bell entirely falling to the street below.

"Who was this man, Who was he?" asked the crowd.

Not wanting to admit liability for the accident, the manager said "I don't know."

"But his face sure rings a bell"

Hello everyone. Today, a 72-year-old man named Mike came into my office. Mike blessed me with many gifts, a sampling of which I would like to share with you all here.

First, Mike asked how I was. I said "good, how are you?" Mike: I had a dream last night I was a muffler. And when I woke up it scared me because I was exhausted.

Mike also has an ex wife. "My Ex wife was so ugly her mom made her go trick or treating by telephone so she didn’t scare the other children."

Not just one ex wife, Mike has two ex wives. "My ex wife was so ugly I used to take her to work with me so I didn’t have to kiss her goodbye"

Mike does a lot of work for various charities. "I asked the lady at a restaurant if I could post my flyer for an event in the window. She said 'that depends, are you a non-profit?' I said 'lady I've got two ex wives, I haven't had profit in 30 years!'"

Those darn ex wives. "I’m so poor a pick pocket tried to rob me the other day and all he got was practice."

Mike actually came to my office to tell me about a basketball camp he's putting on next week. He's been playing basketball for 64 years. "I was a great athlete in high school. I was voted most valuable player by all the cheerleaders."

There was one girl though who got away. "There was a girl who lived down the street and I used to call her all the time and say 'Sarah, can I come over?' and she'd say no. So one day she called & said “Mike, come over, nobody's home.” So I went to her house and she was right, there wasn’t anybody there."

That girl may be why he didn't play baseball. "I played football, basketball and track. Someone asked me 'Mike, why didn't you play baseball?' I said 'because I was already so good at striking out!'"

Anyways, Mike went on to have a lengthy career in TV and radio, until he didn't. "I had to quit my job for medical reasons. My boss said I made her sick."

Thank you for your time.

"Did I ever tell you about the asshole?"

"What?"

"Well, the asshole was at a meeting with all of the other body parts, and they were deciding who should be in charge of the whole body, right? So first, the brain says, 'C'mon, obviously I should be the boss. I do all of the decisions, thinking--why is this even a question?'

'Well, good luck doing all of the thinking if you can't see where you're going,' say the eyes. 'We should be in charge.'

'What good is it going to do seeing, if you can't get anywhere?' asked the legs.

'Well, without us, you'd have no oxygen,' said the lungs.

'Are you serious?' said the stomach. 'How are you supposed to process energy and do any of this stuff, without me??'

'Well, what about me?' piped up the asshole. 'I'm important too..'

'You?!?' laughed the other parts. 'Shut up, asshole!'

So the asshole went on strike.

A week and a half later, the brain couldn't think straight. The eyes couldn't focus, the legs were asleep from sitting on the pot, and the stomach was so jammed up full of crap that the lungs could barely breathe.

Finally, they all went to the asshole and said, 'Look, we're sorry, we're sorry!! Just come back to work, you can be in charge!'

...and that's why all bosses are assholes."

Miss ya, Pops.

A navy SEAL sniper was dispatched from a submarine on the coast of Africa with the mission of traveling inland to quietly take out a warlord. His only link to his superiors on the submarine was cellular messaging device. He arrived and had to lay in cover for days. A pride of lions eventually settled around him, making him very nervous. Circumstances then necessitated immediate action so the commander sent the SEAL messages ordering him to clear the area before the strike. Being in the midst of the pride the soldier couldn't move to check his phone. He then perished in the attack.

However, this is not the first person to miss the subtext because they couldn't read between the lions.

HI I’m Tim the turtle, yes a real turtle. And I would like to tell you the story of my best friend. I once had a friend by the name of Sam. Sam of course was a clam. A real live honest to goodness clam. He was my best buddy, but unfortunately he smoked and drank and ran around with loose women (and a few men). I was more of the goodie two shoes type. I never drank, never smoked, I didn’t even swear. But for some reason Sam and I were the best of friends. I guess you can say we were the epitome of opposites attracting. One day as we were hanging out walking along the beach Sam, after his fifth cigarette in a row, had a heart attack and died. I was heart broken. My best friend died right there in front of me and he never repented his evil ways. I was sure he would spend eternity in damnation. Sigh. Being the goodie two shoes type I was still extremely healthy well into my old age. I missed my friend terribly for many years. On his birthday I would host a party and invite his old stripper girlfriends and poker buddies around to relive stories. It was always a fun evening, but in the end left me more lonely than before. Eventually, my broken heart couldn’t stand it anymore and I too died. I was pleased to find that there was a heaven. Being an almost saint I was whisked directly past the line to the Pearly Gates to be greeted by St. Peter. A big grin erupted on his face and he came right around his desk to give me a great big hug. “Tim”, he said, “You have been such a good person back on earth that God has asked me to grant you any wish you would like before even entering heaven”. To say I was flabbergasted is an understatement. I thought for a minute, I guess God expected me to ask for more time on earth, but I knew what I really wanted to do was to visit with my old friend Sam. So I asked. Poor St. Peter didn’t know what to say. You know Sam is in Hell right? Well I knew that was a strong possibility so I wasn’t surprised. Peter excused himself for a while and went to check with the big guy himself. He was gone quite some time, but eventually he returned. Peter said my request was approved, but under a few conditions. First, I would have to carry a golden harp as a passport back into heaven. This harp could only be carried by a good soul so I couldn’t be replaced by a look alike demon. Second, I would have to return by midnight. God didn’t want me to face too much temptation. I agreed to these conditions and took the highway down to hell. (Nope n

My teacher was talking about the first monopolies in the US and he said that some employees went on strike because they were working around the clock. So I muttered under my breath, "How are we supposed to work with this freaking clock in the way!?" I got sent outside.

Tom Vanderbilt was this nice guy that loves to umpire the local little league games. He was good enough to make it to the major leagues. His first day umpiring behind the plate the first pitch hits the far bottom corner. Tom calls it a strike. The batter, 6'3" 275 lbs says, "you call that a strike again I'm going to pound you with this bat!" The next pitch hits the far bottom corner again. Tom calls it a ball. The catch, who is bigger than the batter turns around and yells, "you call that a ball again I'm going to pound you with this mask!" The very next pitch hits the very same spot. Tom yells, "two!" Both the batter and catcher yell, "two what?!" Tom says, "too close to call and I'm going back to the little leagues."