Off The Hook Puns

I guess that’s debaitable.

A pirate walks into bar and sits down. The bartender notices that he has a peg leg, a hook for a hand, and a patch over one eye. The pirate orders a beer, and while he's pouring it the bartender asks "So what's the story with the leg?" "Well it were many a year ago," says the pirate. "I were walkin on the deck a me ship and a rogue wave swept me overboard, and a shark swum up and bit me leg clean off! I swum ashore and were fitted fer a peg leg that very night." "That's terrible," says the bartender. "What about the hand?" "Well it were the very next day," says the pirate. "I were walkin on the deck a me ship and a rogue wave swept me overboard again, and a whale came up and bit me hand clean off! I swum ashore and were fitted fer a hook that very night." "Wow," says the bartender. "So what about the eye?" "Well it were the very next day," says the pirate. "I were walkin on the deck a me ship, and I were lookin out fer rogue waves, and a seagull flew over and shit right in me eye!" "Oh man," says the bartender. "And that blinded you?" "Well no," says the pirate. "But it were me first day with the hook."

My son and I were in Lids picking out a nice hat for a Christmas present. We wanted to see one on the top rack so the employee grabbed her little hook tool to grab it. Well, she dropped it on the floor... I told my son "I think we can get it for dirty percent off!" My son smirked and laughed just barely but started saying no dad, just no. I was pretty proud of myself!

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

It's off the hook!

Play on words: Sexually frustrated sea mammals

     I'm Russ Whale. My wife Bayleen a few months ago gave birth to our first calf, Humphrey. I convinced my mother-in-law to whale watch tonight. It's been far too long. I drop off Humphrey and head home to hook up with the wife. 

I arrive and who do I sealion there? The wife. I'm undeterred. I try my patented move, the Humpback. I get a slight groan.

Bayleen: Rus, Are you poking me in the back again?

Rus: It's on porpoise. We're alone for the first time in forever.

Bayleen: I'm so tired, I haven't got any sleep with Humphrey making me into a nurse shark. Plus you smell like ambergris.

Rus: Hamburgers?

Bayleen: Yes, hamburgers. Please go take a shower or something.

Rus: Ok.

Rus takes a quick shower and returns. Bayleen is asleep again. Rus tries the humpback maneuver again. Nothing.

Rus: Sometimes... I wish I was a sperm whale.

Rus is slightly blubbering and and all you can make outs is odd noises and maybe the word 'blowhole'. Rus cries himself to sleep.

Fin.

In the middle of our conversation, he cuts me off.

"Okay, I'm doing, like, 78 right now, how the hell did a Ford pickup with one of those horse trailers hooked to the back just pass me?"

"Isn't it obvious? It has more horsepower."

My dad tees off and the ball hooks right into the trees. We try to find it but can't...

"I think it's lost in the woods, dad."

"Welp... Guess next spring a new golf ball tree will be sproutin..."

My dad was taking us fishing & we stopped off to get bait. So the guy behind the counter said, "That'll be two dollars for the worms, and fourteen cents for the tax."
"That's okay," my dad said, "We don't need tacks. They'll stay on the hooks by themselves."
I think the worm guy is still chuckling.

We were hooking a trailer up to our truck. The trailer is old and gives us a lot of grief. Since it was warmer out today it wasn't frozen to it was fairly easy to attach.

CW: "Well, that went off without a hitch!"

Me: "No there's a hitch, right there!" (as i pointed at the truck's hitch)