Hardship Puns

He fell asleep at the wheel

(talking about the hardships of pioneer life)

Me: they could get trampled by a gang of buffalo.

Her: "herd" of buffalo.

Me: Yes, I've heard of buffalo.
Her: buffalo herd.

Me: What did they hear? Was it a secret?

Her: No, like you herd the buffalo.

Me: Yeah, well they are pretty loud.

And that's when she punched me.

A hardship

It's a Civil War era iron-hulled gunboat. Would that be too much of a burden?

Me: I wouldn't call it a burden. More like a hardship.

An old sailor fell from the crows nest onto the deck. He survived. He was used to hardships.

Our hero is rough, he's tough, he's made of mighty stuff, and he's been through many hardships.

Our hero lives in Marree, South Australia. He hears about a job opportunity in Darwin, so goes to his car to drive the 3,100 ks to Darwin. One problem, his car won't start.

This is no problem for our hero, because he's rough, he's tough, he's made of mighty stuff, and he's been through many hardships.

He walks to Darwin.

When he gets there, the bosses love him, and offer him the job on the spot.

"One problem," they say "The job is in Cape Town, and all air traffic has been halted because of the cyclones"

No problem for our hero. He's rough, he's tough, he's made of mighty stuff, and he's been through many hardships.

Our hero gets on the boat to travel the 11,000 ks to Cape Town.

Not far into the journey, the boat hits a storm and capsizes. No problems for our hero, he's rough, he's tough, he's made of mighty stuff, and he's been through many hardships.

He starts swimming.

In the open ocean, a container ship spots him, and offers to help.

"One problem," the captain says over the loud speaker, "There's no rope".

No problem for our hero, he's rough, he's tough, he's made of mighty stuff, and he's been through many hardships.

He scales the side of the ship bare-handed.

A few days later, they're attacked by pirates. One problem, he's unarmed and outnumbered

No problem for our hero as he is rough, he is tough, he's made of mighty stuff, and he's been through many hardships.

Our hero valiantly defends himself, gets some weapons, and is defending the bridge from all attackers.

He fights off the captain of the pirates, and deals him a mortal blow. One problem, the captain in his death throws, pushes our hero off the bridge, and he plummets towards the deck.

No problem for our hero as he's rough, he's tough, he's made of mighty stuff, and he's been through many hardships.

There once was a man from the Ukraine named Ivan Ivanavich. Now Ivan and his family were dirt poor, in fact they were so poor, that they had to sell the cockroaches and rats they found in their hovel to make some spare change to to feed their many family members. One day, Ivan decided it was time to travel to the United States to try and have a better life and miraculously he managed to get aboard a ship to the States. Now his journey on this ship was miserable, he was down in the bowels of the ship, which was flooded with rats and feces, but he hunkered down and gave it his all to survive this terrible journey. finally, one day he hears commotion above, they had arrived at last. Ivan walks up to the topside of the old ship and sees the New York Harbor. He stands there amazed seeing such a beautiful sight. Ivan starts his life in New York but he doesn't have a significantly better life than the one he left behind. Nobody is interested in hiring immigrants but eventually he lands himself a gig of selling old newspapers. He would go through garbage cans to find old papers and would sell them to people in the poorer part of town. He makes slightly more spare change, but not really enough to live a better life. In his spare time, which he had plenty, he decides to start free diving in the bay. He goes there each day, and started to get really good at it. One day, an owner of a Circus spots him diving and is amazed at how good he is. He decides to offer Ivan a job at his circus doing performance diving. Ivan eagerly accepts and begins his career as a circus member performing amazing high jumps into really small containers of water. After a few months of doing this he suggests to the owner one amazing jump to wow everyone and put his circus on top of the entertainment world. The owner contemplates this and eventually agrees. He rents a ship much like the one Ivan arrived in and placed the smallest container yet. The radio and tv crews, journalist all arrive to spectate the event of a lifetime. The hour arrives and Ivan begins his climb up a massive lighthouse on the edge of the cliff, and the ship is positioned into place beneath him. Ivan is very nervous but decides it's go time, and jumps from the massive lighthouse. As Ivan falls, he takes perfect form heading straight towards his target. As he dives a sudden wave pushes the ship ever slightly throwing off the careful alignment. Ivan hits the deck and goes straight through the top of the ship. The spectato

This morning, my 5 year old (Definitely not really named H) and I were discussing the hardships of having to attend (all-day) kindergarten nearly every day (on his third day). So, we applied some estimates and came up with the following:

Me: "So, there are about 200 days you go to school this year. And, since you're in kindergarten, you have at least 13 years of school. So you have about 2600 days of school left. At least."

H: "...Okay..."

Me: "But, do you have to do a week of school today? Or just one day?"

H: "Just one."

Me: "Right. And you can handle one day. You've already done that twice, and you liked them both."

H: "Yeah."

Me: "So, you can handle this, right? Just one day at a time."

H: "Yeah, I can do that."

Me: "So, do you want to hear a dumb joke?"

H: "Sure."

Me: "How do you eat an elephant?"

H: "What?! I dunno."

Me: "One bite at a time."

[H groans, flops down on the bed, and starts maybe-playfully kicking at me]

Me: "Hey, I told you it was a dumb joke."

H: "But I didn't think it would be that dumb."

Me: "You should know by now that if I say it's dumb, it's really dumb. Now, get dressed and I'll meet you downstairs."

[H invokes his future-teenager self and groans me out of the room]

Not really a joke, but it sure made me laugh.

A few days ago I was working on an essay about Harriet Tubman. I finished it Wednesday night and left it in the kitchen overnight. At some point during the nighttime my father erased one of my sentences. It was something like, "New York responded to this incident with outrage, with most sympathizing with Tubman over her economic hardships."

He replaced it with, "Harriet Tubman wrote the first draft of the film The Parent Trap on the back of a Carls Jr. sandwich wrapper." I didn't check the paper before turning it in.

My teacher was not amused.