Problem Set Puns

I said to my partner, "If my TV dies, I'm gonna be really..."

She chimes in, "Upset?"

I turn and smile.

"No, I'd be down a set."

He's been a real pain in my arson.

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

So this is a bit long, sorry about that.

Zorro and his best bud the Lone Ranger were riding through the desert one day, I forget where they were heading to or where they had come from, but we can safely assume shenanigans of some kind were the driving force.

They have been travelling for most of the day and are starting to get tired. There has been a discussion about making camp for the night, but as things are they have agreed to continue riding for a while longer, till the sun starts to set. Away and off to the west the Lone Ranger spies a plant that seems to have large pink flowers that hang in strips with white stripes running the length of them.

"Zorro, what's that over there?" he asks.

Zorro turns in his saddle and raises his hand to shield his eyes from the sun. "Ah, it looks like a bacon tree, quite common in these parts. Let's ride on, there is a good place an hour from now to set up camp."

The two friends ride on and as the sun is beginning to descend the have stopped and are making camp. As Zorro begins to make a fire he says to the Lone Ranger, "You know, I quite fancy some pork. You ride back to that bacon tree and get some for supper, and I'll finish setting up camp here."

"No problem Zorro, I won't be long" replies the Ranger, jumping back into the saddle and returning the way they came.

Time passes, and the sun begins to get low in the sky. 'Odd', thinks Zorro 'he should be back by now.' Another hour passes and the shadows are growing longer. 'I might have to go investigate, it's not like him to take his time.' More time passes, and, just as Zorro has decided that he must go search for his friend in the dwindling light, he hears the sound of Silver's hooves. Looking into the gathering gloom he sees his friend riding towards him. As the Lone Ranger nears Zorro can see the Lone Ranger is injured, there are cuts and bruises and he has an arrow through his hat.

"What on earth happened, Lone Ranger? Did you make it to the Bacon tree?"

The Lone Ranger dismounts and sighs heavily.

"That weren't no Bacon tree, Zorro. That was an Hambush."

A horse is sitting at home, watching MTV...

He's watching a heavy metal music video, and the guitarist plays an amazing solo. The horse says "that looks amazing, I want to do that!"

The horse goes to the phone book, looks up a music teacher and calls him. "Hi, I'd like to learn to play guitar." Says the horse.

"Sure," says the man on the phone. "Just come to your lesson and we'll get you started."

"There's just one problem," says the horse. "I'm a horse."

"Not to worry," the man says. "We have new state of the art technology to teach horses. You'll be playing like a pro in no time."

Sure enough, the horse gets really good at the guitar and he can play that amazing solo. He wants to show his friends, so he picks up the phone and calls chicken.

"Hey Chicken, come over!" he says. Chicken comes over, watches horse play the guitar and thinks it's pretty cool. Chicken watches the music video and says "hey, that drum part is pretty cool, I want to learn to play that."

Chicken goes to the phone book, looks up a music teacher and calls him. "Hi, I'd like to learn to play the drums." Says the chicken.

"Sure," says the man on the phone. "Just come to your lesson and we'll get you started."

"There's just one problem," says the chicken. "I'm a chicken."

"Not to worry," the man says. "We have new state of the art technology to teach chickens. You'll be playing like a pro in no time."

Sure enough, the chicken gets really good and begins to jam with the horse. Eventually, they think that something's missing. They watch the video again and realize they need a bass guitarist. They call their friend Cow and show them what they've been up to. Cow thinks it's pretty cool, and wants to learn how to play the bass guitar.

Cow goes to the phone book, looks up a music teacher and calls him. "Hi, I'd like to learn to play bass guitar." Says the cow.

"Sure," says the man on the phone. "Just come to your lesson and we'll get you started."

"There's just one problem," says the cow. "I'm a cow."

"Not to worry," the man says. "We have new state of the art technology to teach cows. You'll be playing like a pro in no time."

Sure enough, the cow gets really good at the bass and the animals have a nice band going.

One day, while they're practicing, a man walks by and hears them. He goes up to the animals and says "hey, you guys are pretty good! I'm from a record label, I'd like to sign you!"

The band records an album, puts out some singles and becomes a massive success.

Most of this is my own work, if not, it was inspired by something clever!
I hope this will tickle your funnybone and produce a jolly good set of laughs.

A guy didn't register that the wet paint signs about the handrail was still drying, his hand immediately stuck to the rail. My only response to him was, well you see there, it's an application problem, not hardware.

A researcher's obsession with mixing sand, stones, lime and water has started to yield concrete results.

Eyeglass makers who profit well can frame their success.

Joe: I gave the backyard squirrels Christmas presents!
Abby: Are you nuts?
Joe: No, that's what I gave them...

What did the supervisor at the tortilla factory say at the end of a long workday?
That's a wrap!

Television is a medium because anything well done is rare. (Insp)

People who don't answer the phone sometimes miss their calling in life.

His words were heavy, but his friends didn't get the gravity of the situation.

Time flies like crazy!
Fruit flies like apples!

Never let logic and reasoning get in the way of telling a good story. (Sounds like something that would be said on TopGear/Grand Tour)

There are a few words that will open many doors for you in life - Push and Pull (Insp)

Somehow people really don't like it when I throw lamps at them to encourage them to lighten up.
Same goes for tossing handles for when they need to get a grip or soap for cleaning up their act.

When you're on the ballot for the water council and they have a runoff election.

Ghosts speak latin, it's a dead language (Insp)

If you work at a grocery, send the interns down to the meat market to get some red herrings.

There was a river in Egypt that no one believed existed, it was known locally as De-Nile.

Bad luck Brian - Invests in uranium, profits decay.

There was an explosion at the film manufacturing company, reporters say the story is still developing.

Why do bagpipers walk around?
To get away from the noise (Insp)

Most people have a six-figure income, just the decimal point is in the wrong place.

It has recently been discovered that scientific research causes cancer in rats.

In Russia, the term road has had a controversial meaning for a very long time.

In Canada/Russia, you put things in the fridge to warm them up.

Did you know that the creator of Barbie was named Barbara Dahl?

Doc: There's something not q

This is the story of Jack and the Beanstalk, after the story ends. After chopping down the beanstalk, Jack realizes that he’s actually pretty damn good with an axe, and casual vegetative vandalism really struck his fancy, so he began chopping down other trees for a living. He became a traveling woodsman, and he enjoyed many years of his simple life of manual labor.

One day, as he chops wood, he hears screams from a nearby cottage. Hurriedly breaking in (because recall: jack has no problem with entering houses uninvited), he sees a cross dressing lycanthrope attempting to devour a little girl dressed all in red and her little grandmother too. Wielding his trusty axe, Jack murdered yet another fantasy creature, and safely led Little Red all the way back home. Answering the door was a beautiful woman of around his age. After sending Little Red to bed, the two of them talked for hours.

One thing led to another, and a year later they were married with a child on the way. They had a beautiful little boy named Jack Junior who followed in his father’s steps to become a woodsman. This was fortunate, because as Junior grew up, Jack was feeling the pain of his previous adventures. An old back injury from jumping from the beanstalk was haunting him, and over time his posture grew more and more hunched. He had a tough time working, but at least Junior was becoming a strapping young man.

One day, Jack and Junior took the long road to the grandmothers place to bring her a meal, just like that fateful trio Red took so many years ago. When they arrived, the grandmother greeted them cheerily, welcoming them in and making conversation. “Oh Junior,” she said, “you’ve grown into such a handsome and strong young man. It’s so kind of you to handle all the work so your poor father, with his bad back and all, doesn’t have to. Why don’t you have a girlfriend yet?” Junior hesitated. “Well Grandma,” he replied. “It’s because... I’m gay”. The close-minded, set-in-her-ways grandma’s expression became stormy. She pulled poor hunched-over Jack into adjacent room, and whispered angrily: “Jack, your life is a mess! Your posture is terrible and your son isn’t giving me any grandsons!” Jack replied: “Ma, we’re happy, you can’t just-“ But she interrupted. “No excuses!” She snapped. “You need to straighten your lumbar, Jack!”

Hello ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking.

I've been very busy with personal stuff for the past few weeks, so I've let this subreddit drift unattended. Reading some of the reports and comments after coming back makes me realize that my absence led to some unwanted events happening!

Let's start with the fun stuff: We now have a new fancy rulebook! If you suspect a post of breaking these rules, feel free to report it in the relevant category, or use (8) other if you suspect it to slip through the cracks of one of the other rules.

Secondly, as of right now, we do not have an explicit rule forbidding inflammatory subjects like race, politics, etc, as the rest of reddit seems to be melting down, but so far we remain unscathed. I wish to let you all crack puns like adults without having to put on training wheels, but if any of the above subjects become a problem then I will swiftly revisit this. Consider this a privilege, not a right, and do try to avoid abusing it! Piggybacking off this, any post that is more 'lewd' than PG should be NSFW tagged. If it is inappropriate for an office setting, I will manually NSFW it, and repeat offenders will have consequences.

Third, you can now request puns! start a self post with [request] and put in whatever information is necessary, such as "[request] puns about clocks".

I'll keep this post stickied for about a week or so, to keep it as a nice feedback net, and we can adjust rules, add/delete/modify them as needed, to keep our subreddit of lovely puns in peak condition!

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?

I grew up in Vermont. Around my town were plenty of dairy farms, inviting the always wonderful manure aroma. An aroma that nearly forced my father to inhale deeply through his nose, saying, "Ah, fresh Vermont air!"

That's an excellent Dad one liner, as are most dad jokes, but he had another great one that I'm getting to.

You see, the hay bails we saw growing up in Vermont were mostly the cube variety. Hay bailing technology at the time created cubes of hay, so that's what dotted the fields they'd graze in.

As we grew older, we starting noticing the now more common round bails of hay. Dad was not pleased.

I asked him what the problem was or, at least, what his problem was with the round bails. The best jokes are set up when you ask for them.

So, he tells me. New farming technology allowed the round bails to be created more efficiently. They used less fuel in the bailers, took less passes on the field to gather the hay. They used less twine, and even though they didn't fill a truck as well as square bails, there was still a net monetary gain from the efficiency gained elsewhere.

However, studies were done on the bails. The cows approached them differently due to the different alignment of surface area. The way the rain hit the bails and rolled off as opposed to soaking in leached nutrients out of the hay. Some cows even mistook the shape of bail for another animal, and approached them so nervously that their heart rates were known to raise significantly; such a rate that a tinge of acidity could be tasted by those in the know in their milk.

What all of this amounted to... is that with the new round bails of hay, the cows just weren't getting a good square meal.

A man was very unhappily married and tired of being in debt. So he figured out a way to resolve both of his problems with ease. He started by taking out a life insurance policy on his wife, naming himself as the sole beneficiary. Then, he spoke to a friend, who had a friend, who knew a guy who made people "disappear". He met with the gentleman, Artie, and they set up the plot to murder his wife. Artie said it would only be $5,000, but he wanted it upfront. The man, not having much money, opened his wallet and showed Artie the lone one dollar bill. Reluctantly, Artie took the dollar as a down payment. A few days later, Artie followed the wife into a grocery store, and back to the deli section. There was no one else around, so Artie took the opportunity to strangle her to death. Just as he was laying her body down, the manager walked out to witness this scene. Not wanting to leave any witnesses, Artie murdered the manager as well. Unbeknownst to Artie, the store's security witnessed all of this unfold from the hidden cameras around the store. By the time the manager was dead, the police had arrived and arrested Artie. The following day, the front page of the local newspaper read, "Artie Chokes Two For One Dollar at Your Hometown Grocery Store!"

I had been driving for a few years and had just moved off to college.

I was on my way back home to visit and it got dark during my drive. My headlights and radio worked but my dash lights were not coming on. When I got home I asked my dad about it and he said he'd go take a look. He went outside then comes back in the house just a few minutes later.

Me: "Did you find out what the problem is?"

Dad: "I think so."

Me: "Well, what was it?"

Dad: "I'll have to show you tomorrow, if I'm right then we're going to have fun working on your truck all morning."

We wait until morning, and dad wakes me up to go work on my truck. We go outside and he has me walk him through the entire problem again. Which lights were working and which were not, has me start the truck a few times and has me do the same troubleshooting I did the night before. I was getting frustrated and told him I tried absolutely everything.

Then he says "I think there's one thing you forgot." He points at a knob by the steering wheel. I looked at where he was pointing and it hit me. It's the damned the dash-light dimmer switch, and it was set to it's lowest (dimmest) position. When I looked back up at him he just had the biggest grin on his face. He then went into a full explanation on how this knob worked, knowing full well that I already knew what that knob did. Which, by the way, I'm sitting on the driver's seat and he's standing at the driver's side door. So I had no way to walk away from this embarrassing moment. All I could do was look down at the steering wheel and listen to him enjoying his joke.

Bonus story #1:

I'm in my 30s and one of my friends is a 74 year old guy that I play pool with. He always asks me what I've been up to, and one time I told him I met a girl.

He got excited and said "Do you have any pictures of her?" So I showed him a few pictures of us together.

Old man: "She's beautiful! She sounds like a keeper."

Then he leans in with a grin and says "Do you have any naked pictures of her?"

Me: "No way!"

Old man: "Do you want to see some?"

Bonus story #2:

That same old man was at our friend's wedding. He's sitting at the table with his wife and a bunch of other people. The conversation is about how they have been married for 50+ years. He says "I don't know how she's put up with me for this many years. But I've always told her that she can leave whenever she wants to, cause I'm comin' with her."

His wife explained that she has heard all of his jokes so

Set-up: I'm reviewing an essay for a classmate and his grammar is lamentable. I'm giving my husband some examples.

Me: He switches tenses mid-sentence and keeps using "begin" instead of "began."

Husband: The problem with people like you is that you're always too tense.

Me: Then get over here and give me a massage!

Husband: No, I believe in women's rights and would never want to be massage-onistic.

MAN LAWS

The International Rules of Manhood

1: Under no circumstances may two men share an umbrella.

2: It is OK for a man to cry ONLY under the following circumstances:

(a) When a heroic dog dies to save its master.

(b) The moment Angelina Jolie starts unbuttoning her blouse.

(c) After wrecking your boss' car.

(d) When she is using her teeth.

3: Any Man who brings a camera to a bachelor party may be legally killed and eaten by his buddies.

4: Unless he murdered someone in your family, you must bail a friend out of jail within 12 hours.

5: If you've known a guy for more than 24 hours, his sister is off limits forever unless you actually marry her.

6: Moaning about the brand of free beer in a buddy's fridge is forbidden. However complain at will if the temperature is unsuitable.

7: No man shall ever be required to buy a birthday present for another man. In fact, even remembering your buddy's birthday is strictly optional. At that point, you must celebrate at a strip bar of the birthday boy's choice.

8: On a road trip, the strongest bladder determines pit stops, not the weakest.

9: When stumbling upon other guys watching a sporting event, you may ask the score of the game in progress, but you may never ask who's playing.

10: You may flatulate in front of a woman only after you have brought her to climax. If you trap her head under the covers for the purpose of flatulent entertainment, she's officially your girlfriend.

11: It is permissible to drink a fruity alcohol drink only when you're sunning on a tropical beach... and it's delivered by a topless model and only when it's free.

12: Only in situations of moral and/or physical peril are you allowed to kick another guy in the nuts.

13: Unless you're in prison, never fight naked.

14: Friends don't let friends wear Speedos. Ever. Issue closed.

15: If a man's fly is down, that's his problem, you didn't see anything.

16: Women who claim they "love to watch sports" must be treated as spies until they demonstrate knowledge of the game and the ability to drink as much as the other sports watchers.

17: A man in the company of a hot, suggestively dressed woman must remain sober enough to fight.

18: Never hesitate to reach for the last beer or the last slice of pizza, but not both, that's just greedy.

19: If you compliment a guy on his six-pack, you'd better be talking about his choice of beer.

20: Never join your girlfriend or wife in discussing a friend of yours, except if she's withholding

The problem was, as soon as I thought of the punchline, I forgot the set-up, and vice versa.