No Cities Left Puns

His best friend, Roy, was known around town for having an adventurous streak that a small town just couldn't satisfy. Roy yearned to travel the world, to rub shoulders with the well-to-do, and to squeeze every drop of excitement he could out of life. While most young folk in town, my grandpa included, were resigned to their lot, Roy was driven by his dream. He worked incredibly hard, taking every hired-hand and handy-man job he could find. He would walk five miles each way to clean a gutter if there was a nickel to be made. His hometown was always spotless, because Roy would pick up every glass bottle he saw to get the deposit back, and every can he found would get turned in for recycling.

The years stretched on. Grandpa settled down with his high school sweetheart in a one-room cottage and had my dad, and not much else. Roy kept hurrying from one job to the next, never spending a dime on a date. Everyone would just roll their eyes and quietly gossip about how poor Roy's obsession was robbing him of a real life.

One day, Roy showed up at Grandpa's house, all decked out in a brand new khaki safari kit, complete with helmet, binoculars, and elephant gun, and announced that he had finally saved up enough for passage to Africa to go big game hunting. He was especially proud of the fine leather boots he was sporting. "Indestructable" he called them, totally impenetrable to water, wind, and snow. No trench-foot for him while he tracked rhinos on the savannah!

Grandpa congratulated Roy on his achievement and wished him bon voyage. Over the next three months, the town felt Roy's absence. Litter lay where it fell, gutters overflowed in heavy rain, small-time farmers rose that bit earlier and bedded that bit later to cover the work Roy used to help with. Of course, the gossipers just turned their chat from how Roy needed a dose of reality to how thoughtless it was of him to just up and leave. Most folks were convinced Roy was gone for good. After all, how could he come back from such a high-falutin' adventure to his tiny, no-account hometown?

But return Roy did, and everyone crowded around at the bar to hear his account of his safari. To their surprise, Roy told them that, for all the time he had been away, he only bagged one trophy that was currently on a slow boat back. It turned out, once Roy got a close-up look at the elephants, rhinos, giraffes, gazelles, and all the fine animals of the African savannah, he lost all heart for hunting. He just couldn't imagi

Two high school students named Steve and Josh found themselves broke on a saturday afternoon while strolling around in the city mall. They hadn't eaten lunch and they were getting hungry, but alas, they had no money for food and they were hours away from home.

"I heard there's a place downtown where you can get a sandwich for free" Steve said to Josh.

"That sounds great, let's check it out" Josh replied, and they headed downtown.

They soon found the place. It was a small shop, too small to feel like a real business. The place had no tables or chairs, and not really much furniture at all. An old man stood behind a small counter and eyed them as they entered.

"Welcome to the Laughing Hoagie" he said.

"What is a laughing hoagie?" Josh wondered.

"It's the name of this sandwich place. This is not a regular sandwich shop. We have a special offer here for people who can't afford to pay for their food." the man said as he smiled a toothy smile at them.

"So it's true then," Josh blurted out, "we can get free food here?"

"Not so fast." The old man said. "There is a condition."

"What is it?" Steve wondered aloud.

"Well," the man started "you have to listen to one of my jokes, and the one of you who laughs the most genuine laugh gets a free sandwhich. The other one gets nothing."

As he said this, the old man opened a small refrigerator that stood behind the counter and produced a large, footlong sandwhich with ham, cheese, bacon, lettuce and tomatoes. It was covered in a white dressing and gave off a faint peppery aroma. The boys' mouths started watering at the sight of it.

"What? So only one of us gets a sandwhich?" Steve asked, taken aback.

"Those are the rules," the old man grinned, "if you don't like it, you may leave."

"Nah, we'll hear the joke." Josh said. Steve looked at him, and then nodded to the old man.

"All right." the old man rubbed his hands together as if preparing to dig into a strenuous task.

"What did the mother Buffalo say when her boy left for college?" he asked, and looked expectantly at the teens. They both stared at him with blank expressions.

"Bye Son!" he exclaimed, and struggled not to burst out giggling at his own quip. Josh chuckled a bit, but Steve just frowned.

"That was the worst joke I ever heard!" he exclaimed.

"Well," the old man said as he handed the sandwich over to Josh, "if you don't like jokes with really bad punchlines, then this sub is not for you."

When I was maybe 7 or 8 my dad was performing some routine maintenance on my mums van, probably an oil change or something. Anyway I asked dad what he was doing and he told me he had installed a time travel device that would take us back in time. My dad is still a geek and at the time the wizardry he could do with electronics left me with no doubts in my mind that he had in fact invented and installed a time travel device in my mums van. When finished he suggested we take it for a test drive.

The next morning we got up quite early, packed a picnic and loaded the family into the van to see the time traveling van in action, we drove for about an hour out of the city to a small town called......Middlemarch.

When we got there he said "Well we're in the middle of march now, and it was December when we left home!"