Press Pass Puns

An emperor decided his population was rising too fast and decided to decrease the numbest. Bunches of generous birth and death control methods did he come up with, but the most dastardly scheme was the Neat Edict. His subjects, however, bitterly called it The Press Test.

The emperor, you see, founded a law that anyone found wearing rumpled clothing, after being fined, would find a rock, then use his or her (or their) own forehead(s) as an iron...to press and press to reduce the crinkles in the clothes to half, then half of that, then half of that... As the victims wept, the soldiers jeered at the poor souls and mocked them: "Press! Press! They were halving a bawl.

To the despot's calculated glee, no one could pass The Press Test. As sure as waking up with a sniffle, everyone starts off with a crumple in the blouse and more get added as the day goes by. So there was no shortage of victims squirted into The Press Test arena.

First it was 12 creases legislated, then 5. It soon became Three and then One, before ending in none. By slowly reducing the number of creases permitted in clothing, the whole population was soon caught up in the Emperor's net. It was most unfair, but no matter how hard they pressed for freedom from The Press, the population steadily dwindled.

The approximately equally wicked emperor of the next fiefdom, taking sadistic note, invited his neighbour over to congratulate him. "How did you achieve that?", Vile asked Evil over a poisoned lunch.

Clutching at the tablecloth as he went down writhing, he nevertheless had a last grasp answer:

"By gradual decrees"

So my two grandfathers we talking to each other at a family dinner, and got on the topic of work history.

Grandpa 1 was saying how he went from being a florist to a manager at a car factory. Grandpa 2 asked how he came about making such a dramatic career change.

Grandpa 1: "Well I always was a plant manager."

Rather worried, Noah said “But my Lord, have the people not been good this time? Must there be another flood?”

“No, there will not be a flood, the people have been good.” Said the Lord.

“Then why another ark?” Asked Noah.

“I wish for this ark to only house fish.” The Lord replied.

A slightly confused Noah responded “Okay... I shall do as you wish my Lord.”

“But not just any fish; only carp.” The Lord said unto him.

Noah, now more bemused, replied “Uh- okay my Lord.”

“One more thing.” The Lord said unto him “it needs to have multiple levels.”

“Are you sure my Lord? What is the purpose of this? What on earth is it all for?” Noah pressed.

And God said: “I want you to build a multi-story carp-ark.”

Passed from my father unto me, to pass onto my son when he becomes a father.

There once was a man who had a job driving a passenger train between two large towns. It could be a very dull job to some, but as the old saying goes, one man's trash is another's gold; he wanted to be a railroad man since he was a boy.

He was a wiz behind the controls of the train, and commanded the 15 car vehicle effortlessly as if he had been born to do the job. He prided himself on the fact that he could bend the rules and speed through curves and grades that made other motormen shiver and back off.

One day however, he wasn't so lucky and came round a bend too fast and derailed his train. He backed off the throttle and braked as much as he could, managing to only have one fatality out of 500 passengers on his train.

Months later there was a trial and he was found guilty of manslaughter in the highest degree, a capital offence in that land, and sentenced to die by electric chair. Punishment came swift, unlike most places, and 3 days after sentencing the former railroader was asked for his last meal.

"I'll have a banana," "Just a single banana?" said the perplexed guard. "The warden will grant you a feast and all you want is that?"

"Just a single banana." he said.

After he downed the fruit, he was strapped into the electric chair an hour later.... The warden hit the switch, lights flickered, and the crackle of electricity could be heard for over a minute...

...but our train jockey instead rose from the chair looking more like he got a stiff massage, rather than be put to death! Well in that nation, the law of the land states that if a man somehow survives being put to death, they must be set free...

...And so it came to pass that our engineer was let go...

And for whatever reason, he got his job back!

So he was back railroading again doing the job that he loved. You'd think he'd have been more cautious with this second chance he'd been given, but you'd also be wrong. Speedy Gonzales with a train license decided to gun his locomotive to hard and send it off the tracks again!

Of course, this time he was tried for the same crime, but at a different time (his was a fair commonwealth and double indemnity was simply unheard of!) So fair was their nation, that the jury came up with the same judgement and punishment. So three days later, when asked for his last meal, the engineer simply said "I'll have 2 bananas..."

Not less than 60 minutes after consuming the last morsel was he strapped into the chair and the switch thrown... And....

NOTHING.

Background, I work for a relatively large University as front line tech support for Staff and Students, walk up, phone, email, chat, etc.

Today was first day of classes so a large number of students and staff passed through our doors. Walk-ups take a number then we can press a button on our system to claim the next number and we can call them.

We had extra help today so not all of the tickets that were pushed were called.

I pull up my ticket system start clicking and calling, a lot of them, no response. I get to 404, call it out, no response so I repeat it and "Not Found? ok".