Hold Open Puns

Because it's a nice jester

I think it's adoorable.

"Sense us."

1950's, my dad worked in a government building for the administrative side of an “intelligence arm” of the government. The building was large and had a central park-like courtyard, which was open to the public.

About twice a week, a neatly dressed man, wearing a cap and carrying a canvas bag, would enter the courtyard, sit on a bench, open the bag, and pull out a rooster.

The rooster wore a leather harness the man would clip on a leather leash and walk the rooster around the courtyard. Everyone knew the guy. He was a common fixture. He’d had his own carnival act with trained roosters. He’s bring the rooster to courtyards to scratch & feed away from dogs.

So, recall my dad worked for an “intelligence arm” of the government, which required stringent background checks and psychological testing.

The whole department was in on this Dad Joke. In comes the new guy, in his own way, will eventually bring up the rooster:

“You won’t believe what I just saw. A guy walking a rooster on a leash in the courtyard!”

And then it starts. Someone would ask everyone: “Any you guys see it? Dan? Jim? Bob? Mark? No? No?” and they’d home in on the guy:

• You’re kidding!

• How much have you had to drink?

• Are you on something?

• Job getting to you already?

• Maybe you need your head reexamined!

• I dare you to go tell the boss what you just saw…

• What other things have you been seeing?

• Do you really have a wife and kids?

• Is this some kind of Russian joke?

My dad’s two lines were always:

• How many fingers am I holding up?

• Are you sure it was a rooster, and not a hen?

"you left this in the bathroom!!"

"In case someone had to use the can."

Some stories have hooks.

This story has a bloody good one.

It's about love—

Or at least marriage.

My marriage.

At heart, it's your typical fish out of water story, but like I said there's a hook.

The hook's in the beginning.

Although it's really the tail end that's most moving—at least now, when our love's drying up.

Understand:

I'm a fisherman, and I caught my wife with another man.

Well, I caught the man first.

I used Craigslist.

But I suppose the details don't really matter. It's enough to know that by the time he was naked in the shed it was too late for him to change his mind.

He broke down easily. He wasn't particularly thick skinned.

That's where the hook came in—

pushed through a fold of flesh on his back.

He wasn't much in the size department, but I didn't intend for him to get hung up on it. Unfortunately, he kept trying to escape, so what choice did I have? Then he seemed quite insecure, so I pierced him with another steel hook just in case.

Like I said:

Bloody good hook.

After he stopped struggling, I took him down and dragged him to my boat. Then we went fishing.

Hold on, though.

I may need to backtrack a little, because you may be wondering how I even knew she was out there.

The answer is: I'd already seen her swimming a few times.

It was love at first sight.

Like many couples nowadays we met on the net.

So back to when I was fishing:

I was in my boat with the Craigslist man with the steel hooks in his back. I had tied a thick rope to one of the hooks, placed the man onto a net, and pushed them both overboard. He splashed and choked, attracting a lot of attention.

I waited for her call.

It came.

She sounded so near to me.

When she swam just close enough to the Craigslist man in the water, I pulled in the net—and there she was: shining, mine to the gills and writhing so enticingly!

I took her ashore.

I placed her in a water tank and told her she would be my wife.

I screwed her—

shut.

For days I watched her bang—

on the glass.

Until one day it happened: the glass cracked, the tank broke open, and with the water she spilled onto the floor.

Now here I am, watching my marriage fall apart.

Her gills are barely stirring.

Her face: dry and still.

It's only her scaly tail that's still gently moving.

I caught my wife with another man. I met her on the net. I thought our love would last forever, but now, listening to her shriek, I realize I was catfished! I wanted to marry a siren—but this thing is nothing

...right in front of a house where there’s a huge party going on. He walks in and notices that the party is somewhat divided. There’s a clear distinction between the people waiting for the bathroom and the people queued up for drinks, etc.

Considering the urgency of the bathroom queue, he walks over to the drinks table and asks everyone there if they wouldn’t mind helping him push his car to get it started. They agree but even with the full might of several people, the car doesn’t budge. He thanks them for trying and they all head back inside.

A little while later, the doorbell rings. The man sees the host open the door to the largest pizza guy he’s ever seen. The behemoth is holding 15 pizzas with one hand, a pallet of buffalo wings with the other, with a keg strapped to each shoulder. The man jumps up and asks the pizza guy for his help pushing the car. He agrees and they head to the street.

With barely one touch of a pinky on one hand, the car lurches forward and starts right up. The man drives off, waving behind him and yelling a quick, “Thank you.”

As he catches sight of the party fading into the distance, he says to himself...

“Thank goodness for the delivery because that punch line sure is weak.”

The shop owner directs him to a 1,500$ parrot who can sing Christmas carols. The man doesnt believe the store owner and asks him for proof before dropping the 1,500. The store owner locks the doors and escorts the man to the back of the store and tells him “This is a very special parrot, before he sings you must warm him up by holding a lit match 12 inches beneath.” He then takes out a match, lights it and holds it a rulers length beneath the parrot. After a few moments the parrot starts sining “jingle bells” in the tone of Frank Sinatra. Thinking this might be some cheap parlor trick he asks for several more demonstrations.. “Rudolph” “Frosty the Snowman” “Drummer Boy” even “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” in the best impersonations he’s ever heard! The man gladly hands over the cash and rushes home to amaze his wife. He holds the match a rulers length and nothing. The wife laughingly says he got ripped off. “ No no honey this works watch” he does it again only holding it half a rulers length this time and still nothing! The wife, laughing hysterically, starts going back upstairs. “NO honey it really works watch!” “Im going to bed, Merry Christmas” says the wife as she turns to head up the stairs. “WAIT Honey, one more time, please!” He pulls out another match, this time holding it three inches under the parrot who then squawks out “CHESTNUTS ROASTING ON AN OPEN FIRE”

My girlfriend and I opened a new pack of pre-sliced cheese. As we’re munching, I hold my mouth in pain and say “Ow!” She asked what was wrong and I said, “Well no wonder my mouth hurts, the package says this is extra sharp cheddar.” She was not amused

I was 16 and at a rowing regatta I was competing in. It was middle of the day and very hot everyone was under these massive gazebo/tent structures with big guide wires and these huge rusty steel tent pegs sledgehammered into the dirt.

Anyways I was running late for my race and my crew were yelling at me so I started running. The shortest way was through the spectator area on a big downhill towards the water so at full pace I went that way.

About halfway the top of my barefoot trips on the rusted top of one of these steel pegs and I fall face first and tumble through the dirt with my foot and ankle split open.

People run from all directions, medical staff etc someone holds a towel over my head for shade and I see my dad. He's looking down at me but it's hard to see through the dirt in my eyes and people around.

He asks "bloody hell mate, what happened?".

In agony I manage a "I kicked a tent peg".

He knelt down beside me, looked me in the eye and said "how far did it go?"

I opened the cabinet to pull out the chocolate syrup when I noticed a chocolate fingerprint on the top. I jokingly asked her if she did that to mark it as hers since she had told me she might have to hide it to keep me from using it all. So, we go back and forth over whose fingerprint it is when she grabs it and takes it over to the dog. She holds it up and goes, "Eddie, look. Whose is that?" Of course, he's a dumb dog, so he just whines and wags his tail. She then comes back to me and says, "I sent the fingerprint to the Lab, results came back inconclusive." Cue long sigh.

Edit: Damn...

Edit 2: The Lab

Did you hear about the magician who grabbed Eminem so hard his SnapBack fell off?

He pulled a rabbit out of his hat

What do you call a magician who is an administrator at a college, but nobody knows what students he is in charge of?

Whose dean’s he?

A magician went out to the store and bought a big metal structure so he could hang upside down and do situps. He also loved painting, but because of his style he often knocked the canvas around while dabbing on the paint. So he bought another, wooden structure, like an easel, but with clamps to hold the painting in place while he prodded it with the paintbrush. His wife asked, as he brought them in, what the hell he had just bought. He replied:

“Ab rack and dab rack”

What do you call a magician with very skinny fingers?

Slight of hand

The magician’s wife brought him to the store to buy gifts for a birthday party. She picked out a lovely candle, but wanted to include a nice note. The magician knew just what to do. He brought her down an aisle, found a section marked “birthday,” and said:

“Pick a card, any card”

The Russian magician, in 1932, found an amazing new piece for his act: a giant, wooden sarcophagus in the shape of a beautiful woman. The piece had giant, metal blades inside at waist level. They were locked in place while it was open, but retracted as it closed, making it seem as though the magician had escaped death. But one day, while he was practicing, the great sarcophagus fell over - door still open - right on the magician. When he was found, he was cut right in two. Moral of the story:

In Soviet Russia, box woman saws you.

Okay that’s it. I’m so sorry, I have nothing better to do.

Once upon a time there were three little pigs, Pork Chop, Hambone, and Bacon.

The boys lived at home with their mother. One day their mother said, “I no longer have enough food to feed you boys, you need to go out on your own and find your fortunes.”

Not wanting to upset their mother they left the house together to seek their fortunes.

Several miles into their journey Bacon, the little pig everyone liked best, said, “Let’s build our houses here! This seems like a great place to start making our fortunes.”

Pork Chop and Hambone agreed. So they all began building their houses.

Pork Chop, the laziest of the bunch, decided to build his house out of straw, which he apparently stole from a nearby field. It was not a very sturdy building material, but Pork Chop didn’t care. All he wanted to do was play all day, and he didn’t want to spend too much time building.

Hambone was willing to work a bit harder and he decided to build his house out of sticks which he procured by de-limbing every tree within a 300 meter radius of their homestead.

Hambone and Pork Chop were happy. Now all they had to do was to play and sleep the rest of the day.

Now Bacon was a hard worker. He knew that his brothers had used bad materials and shoddy construction methods and he wanted to build the best house he could. He found several tons of bricks stacked in neatly ordered pallets in the forest which he decided to use for his building material. It took him several days, but when he was done Bacon had the best house on the homestead.

The next day a wolf, Scott Howard, happened upon the pig brothers and their new homestead. He spied the straw house and smelled Pork Chop inside and began to think to himself that Pork Chop would make a mighty fine meal, so Scott went and knocked on the door.

Scott said, “Little Pig! Little Pig! Let me in!”

Pork Chop replied, “No way José! Not by the hairs on my chinny chin chin!”

Scott, undeterred by the reply says, “Then I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow your crappy straw house to the ground!”

Scott began to huff and puff. He was evidently having some sort of asthma attack, but after a few tugs from his handy dandy rescue inhaler, he was able to muster enough wind to blow Pork Chops straw house to the ground.

Pork Chop narrowly escaped Scott’s massive jaws. Scared, and now homeless, Pork Chop ran for the nearest shelter he could see. Hambone’s house.

Scott, undeterred, chased Pork Chop to his new hiding place. Scott was very pleas

What is the vegetarian dish at a pho restaurant called?

Pholiage

She opens the front door and there is a huge log on a chain contraption that can ram castle gates.  Confused, she looks past the medieval device to see her boyfriend standing in the front yard surrounded by dozens of male sheep and holding two tickets to skybox seats for football in Los Angeles.

He holds his arms wide and asks, "what do you think?"

She smiles and says, "Thank you for the rams but all I want for Christmas is ewe."

Son: Dad! I learned an awesome new trick at school in science class. Can I borrow your tie?

Dad: Let's see it.

Son: if we fold your tie in half, and roll the fat end toward the middle, and the thin end toward the middle, we have two rolls - one big and one small, both the same length, right?

Well, if I hold up the tie from the middle, and let go of both sides at the same time, which side will unroll first?

Dad: I have no idea.

Son (drops both ends, which open at the same time):

It's a tie, dad.

Lol, on last year's Valentine's day my best friend had got mad at me for not asking my crush out.

We'd planned on going to McDonald's together because he didn't have a date either. When I arrived at McDonald's this f*cker was holding a cardboard box with a terrified look and when he saw me he immediately gave me the box and told me he'd already bought the food and that we better take the bus to my place. I just thought he probably was joking or something because the box didn't even have any kind of decoration, it even had a chips brand printed on it, but as we got to the bus and sat I felt something moving inside, I thought maybe it was a puppy or something, but why did he look scared of it?

So, we get to my house, I go to my backyard, where my then 7yo beagle was and I open the box. I could only see a black blur flying out of it and then heard my best friend scream. It was a rooster. He's terrified of birds. And weirdest of all it was a fully grown rooster but he was super tiny, like 10 inches tall tiny.

I asked him wtf was going on and he just kinda hid behind the backyard door and said "I bought it so that you could get some cock tonight". I always make puns and he hates them, I was speechless. So long story short I now own 6 chickens and 4 roosters (my mom got super mad at him for buying the rooster, but then she got super attached and bought him a chicken, when she laid eggs she let them hatch, the rooster's name is Enrique btw, my mom even made him a birthday party and all last week, lol)

My wife couldn't open a jar of grape jelly. Our two year old didn't understand why she had to bring it to me. He was only concerned with how long it was taking to make his sandwich. I opened it, but it was pretty hard because the jelly had caked around the threads and dried in place, gluing the lid to the jar.

My wife saw our son getting impatient and told him, "Hold on kiddo, mommy couldn't open the jar, so she had to bring it to daddy. Even daddy had a hard time opening it."

At this point, my internal dad joke radar started screaming a proximity warning. The collision with a dad joke was imminent. I smiled, took half a second to bask in my dad glory, and added, "Yeah, it was jammed."

Wife groaned, but son laughed (because he saw the lid was finally open). I take whatever I can get.

A stick.

Old dude I was holding the open for at the bank graced me with that one.

Im helping clean out an old garage that's been filled with random storage for a couple decades. For the last 10ish years it's had a mouse problem.

A couple weeks ago I set out traps and none of us have had time to be there since. Came back today and three of the four had caught mice. Pretty happy with that.

I chucked out the carcasses and when I went to reset the traps I got a bit of a surprise and my comment drew my friend over.

"What's up?" he asks.

"Look at this," I reply, showing him the traps. "After the first three mice got caught another one came along, opened the lid, and ate the rest of the peanut butter. And then look at this! He stuck his nose into the fourth and are just enough of it not to trigger the trap!" Holding up the trap and showing the teeth marks in the peanut butter.

"That's...disturbing," he replies, "why'd you bait it with peanut butter though? Wouldn't fruit be better?"

"Well, I looked it up online, * and three out of four mice say it's to die for."

———

Until the * I genuinely intended to say why. But it was too good to pass up.

Also, anyone have a cat I can borrow?

He's normally filled with dad jokes, but today was a bit more than usual.

Physics problem about horse pulling cart

Teacher stands up on table and makes horse noises

Class laughs

Teacher: What? I'm a horse! It's a bit of a long tale!

Class laughs

Teacher: but, let's stop horsing around and get to the mane point!

Student: You're on a roll today Mr. Teacher!

Teacher: No, I'm on a table!

Later on in class

Teacher: As you can see forces come in pairs! Pulls out a pear and opens it up revealing F and -F on each side

And then later on

Student: Hold on Mr. Teacher, I'll fix the calculations.

Teacher grabs onto desk

Teacher: When can I stop holding on?

Just a typical day in physics for me.

I'm proud of this one...

My family was visiting friends for a night of Monopoly. We ended a game and were setting up for another when I got up to get a beer for myself and my buddy. We prefer Dos, which doesn't twist off, so I had to use a bottle opener. Enter my 9 year old . . .

"Dad, why don't you use your bare hands to open that bottle?"

He looked up at me with eyes that sought answers and basic truths, not knowing what was about to hit him. I almost felt bad, while trying to hold back a smile, knowing what I was about to say.

"Because I don't have bear hands", followed by the most dad-like laughter possible.

Her: We should get going.

Me: Hold on, I want to open this online bank account before they close.

Her: <sarcastic> Oh yeah, cause they close early on Saturday

Me: Yeah, they have to head out early to beat the internet traffic.

There is an impossible knot in my dog's leash. As I grabbed it to walk the dog I noticed it was no longer there.

Me: Wow you got the knot out! Her: Yup I had to use a screwdriver to loosen it.

I leash up my pup, walk out the door and close it. Suddenly it hits me and I scramble for my keys and I hold up the leash as I burst the door open with a big smile on my face.

Me: It was knot expected! A short pause as figures out what is going on. Her: GET OUT OF HERE!

I spent the whole dog walk giggling to myself.

My dad and I went hunting with some friends in south texas for opening teal season. As I am putting my waders on, he tell me to remember to tie my boots as tight as I can, "or else they'll fall off in the mud, and that would suck, literally". He couldn't have been more proud of himself.

Later he holds the door as I walk out of the small convince store in the town, and I naturally say "thanks". He replies with "you bet," and I told him "really? Because I'm not much of a gambler..." And he just frowned at me.

My dad told me this the first time on Halloween night back when I was 9. He tells it to this day to any of my cousins, nephews, or any kids that happen to linger too long at the house when he's giving out candy. It's a long one but I have always enjoyed it.

Back when I was about your age, I went on a Halloween adventure. There was an old abandoned house on our street where a series of grisly axe murders had taken place years before. The house had never sold and was left vacant and was left to fall apart. There was a local legend that if you went into the house on Halloween night, you'd be confronted by the ghost of the murderer himself, still looking for more victims to add to his terrifying story.

My friend Tom and I decided to go through with it one year. Knowing everyone would be too terrified to go into the house, we snuck in easily on Halloween night. The place was falling apart inside, the carpet was wet and moldy and the wallpaper was peeling off everywhere. We headed down carefully to the basement down a set of creaky stairs.

At first we found nothing. Just an empty creepy old house. Suddenly we felt as if we were being watched. I was looking through one of the rooms in the large basement when I suddenly heard Tom shriek. I spun around and turned my flashlight and Tom was being chased by something, no someone. It looked like it was the murderer! A crazed man with an axe!

We turned and tried to run anywhere. We were in the basement but couldn't get up the stairs because we were blocked. We ran into the side room which looked like it might have been the laundry years ago. We locked the door and looked for a way out. The only thing we could find was a small window that opened onto ground level. As I climbed out I heard a pounding on the door. I managed to wriggle my way through the window and turned around to help my friend Tom. Panicking, he managed to get his top half through the window when I noticed the pounding stop.

Tom was stuck! I kept trying to pull him up but I couldn't. I pulled as hard as I could as Tom panicked and thrashed even more. I thought something had him caught, but it was even worse. The murderer had gotten behind him and was holding him back! He was too strong for me to overcome and he was pulling Tom's leg!

Just like I've been pulling yours this whole time.

My sister and I were cleaning our basement to prepare for a party. Half of it is the entertainment center, and the other half is open space. Our dad tends to use it as a workshop when we're not hosting parties.

As we're putting away tools and sweeping up, my sister calls out, "Hey, I found the heavy metal." I thought she meant my CDs.

When I turned around, she was holding a 2"x6" rectangle of metal. And it was heavy.

And I groaned super hard.

Yesterday was Opening Day (baseball) at Target Field (Minnesota). The first 10,000 or so fans received a free blue zip-up hoodie with "Twins" emblazoned on the front. It's a damn fine hoodie.

It's also packed on the stadium concourse. 40,123 attendees that day. As my husband and I are making our way through a dense crowd along the right field concourse, an older gentleman stops me in my tracks with this big grin and says, "Wow, that's a great sweatshirt! Where'd you get it?"

He was holding one in his hand.

His other hand was holding that of his wife, who was rolling her eyes pretty hard. I imagine that was neither the first nor last time he'd made that joke yesterday.

I deliver pizza for a living and I showed up at the door, as is my wont, with one hand holding the pizza bag and the other holding the receipt. On opening the door, I greeted the pater familia and told him the amount I was owed. He gave me the money and I handed him the receipt so I could free up my hands to pull the pizza out of the bag, saying offhandedly, "Here you go," indicating the receipt. The patriarch then looked at the menu bemusedly and remarked, "Hmm, seems a little light." It took me a little to figure out the joke was supposed to be that he thought the menu accompanying the receipt was the entire delivery.

On noticing my delayed reaction, the daughter of the house proceeded to put her hand to her face in a manner not unlike our dear Snoo at the top of this page. I've been delivering for two years now--that was easily the lamest, most Dad-like joke I have ever come across.

It's a nice jester.