Fruit Preserves Puns

Whenever a song comes on, I’ll hold up a jar and say, “This is my jam!”

Doctor said it was jammed

However, there was an issue with getting the preserves into the packaging phase as the manufacturing plant was downstairs and the bottling machinery was upstairs.

After carefully reviewing the process, the group settled on a solution.

They decided to Pump Up The Jam.

A jellycatessen

The process is jarring

And I was like yeah, that's totally my jam

Back a few decades, I was working in a program with a local college in the Middle East.

The name of the program for ExPats has the clever acronym of "IDEA" (hey, I said it was clever); which stands for "Inter-Departmental Educational Adjunct". It's interdepartmental because my particular specialty not only covers field geology but also paleontology and a bit of archeology thrown in for good measure. Everyone hopes to have a good IDEA...

ahem...

Well, we saddle up and head for the Dune Sea out in the west of the country, where the Precambrian, Cambrian, Silurian, Cretaceous, Pliocene, Pleistocene, and Holocene crop out and access is relatively easy and non-injurious.

Well, we caravan out, some 30 Land Cruisers, Nissan patrol, and the odd Mitsubishi Galloper strong. We all get our maps, compasses and split up into 5 or 6 special interest groups ("SIG's"); where each IDEA has his own GPS and LIDAR laser ranging apparatus. Reason being, that there are very few benchmarks out in the desert, and even those are constantly at the mercy of the shifting and ever-blowing sands.

Since we're split into groups and at any one time, ranging up to and including some 50 km2, when a real find is located, a device called the "DIME" (Digital-Interface Monitor Encoder) is attached and programmed into the GPS for location later; it is a digital sort of low-frequency transponder, developed from technology used by offshore drillers and jacket setters where benchmarks are even more transitory.

The way it works is rather simple. When something is to be marked for later retrieval, a series of wooden posts are pounded in a triangular manner around the find and the DIME is set, programmed with the GPS and attached to one or more of the posts.

That's the theory, at least.

Everything works well, especially all the hardened electronics and computer gizmos, but attaching the DIME to the stakes is the real problem. It can't be nailed, screwed or fastened with any sort of metal contrivance as that farkles the magnetic field and causes all sorts of goofy spurious signals. Zip ties don't last long in the heat and duct tape is right out. Many sites have been lost to the shifting sands this way.

Velcro doesn't work too well, as the sand fills the hooks of the receiving piece of velcro and soon renders it useless. String or fishing line work, but that's temporary (they melt). Glue or mastic are out as these are supposed to be temporary. Even plastic sleeves don't work due to the heat out

John Deavensmit was not having a good time. After an incident involving a coffee spill, he'd been sued for $50 million, and somehow the jury had ruled against him. There was no way he could pay that much money; he'd go bankrupt.

Naturally, he filed for an appeal, but the winner of the case was already beginning to hound him for money, hoping to get at least something before the judgement was overturned. John was nearly at his wit's end before he found an unusual package in his mailbox.

It was from a couple of his friends, who all went on to law school when John left to create a startup. They'd all been very successful, and had gone on to be justices at various levels, from courts in a small county in Wisconsin all the way to the Supreme Court. When he opened it up, he was surprised to see an ink drawing of a thick wooden stick. It was signed by his friends, and accompanied by a note:

> Hey John, > > We're sorry to hear about your loss in court last month. We met up at a judge conference in the Davison Center, and we thought that we'd do something special for you. We met up in the Grapefruit Room and all worked together to draw this. We hope you enjoy it! > > Your friends

Now, John had been to D.C. a few times, and knew about the Davison Centre. It was renowned for its very offbeat architecture. The Grapefruit Room was one of the weirdest: it had been constructed by taking a world-record grapefruit, carving out the flesh, and preserving the rind. The result was a walk-in fruit, and it always smelled of citrus.

It took John a while to work out the significance of the gift, but when he realized it, he was overjoyed. His good friends had seen fit to grant him a stave judge-men penned in a peel.

Eating my English muffin, point to my wife for to pass the fruit preserves my way:

"Lady...marmalade"

Groans all around.