Rush Away Puns

They crept in. It was pitch black and stone quiet. They were suddenly starting to regret this dare. Stupidly, only one brought a flash light. The aggressive darkness and inky black yielded with grudging compliance but always seeming to push back. They moved cautiously onward amid the dust and cobwebs. The floor creaked. They breathed in tight, quick breaths. You could hear a pin drop.

Suddenly, there was a deep moan. "OOOOOOOOUUUUU". It seemed from below them. The house had been abandoned for years. Who or what could make such a sound? The boys looked at each other, but continued on, hearts pounding in their chests.

As they proceeded into the kitchen they encountered a swarm of flies. Buzzing and beating their necks and faces, they rushed and stumbled to the door, not stopping to see what they were truly feasting on. They slammed the door behind them. Maybe a body? But no way were they going back to find out. And again came the sound, "ooooOOOOOooooOOUUU" but louder this time, and closer.

They proceeded through the dark into the dining room. They saw a fully set dining table covered in cob webs. Dust-covered regal-looking glasses, goblets and silverware adorned the table. Spiders climbed on ivory plates. Clearly a house of privilege and set for a grand feast which never happened.

Or, perhaps, met a fatal end?

They pushed on. But again that unearthly howl.

"oooooOOOOOOOOOOOUuuuuUUUUuuUUOOOOooo".

They found the basement staircase, and from below, the sounds seemed to be emanating. Could they proceed? Would they? Did they dare? Two of the boys looked at each other, faces filled with worry.

But the third said, confidently, "We're going down there." Not wanting to seem the weaker, the other two boys steeled themselves and nodded.

The stairs creaked and groaned evily under their feet. The rickety banister shook in angry defiance. Insects and vermin scattered underneath them with every step. They were descending into hell, they knew, but none would turn back.

And the sound: "oOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUuuuuUUOOOO". Now loud enough to fill not only their heads but seeming to claw at their very souls!

Now at the basement door! The antique, crying squeak of the hinges eeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEee made the boys wince and almost cover their ears. But they had to know. WHAT is making that horrible, terrible sound?

"ooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUoooooUUUUUUUOOOOOOO"

In the center of the basement lay an unholy coffin! A twisted artistic expression of murder, decay and

My boy, Arthur, is slow. He is the slowest child I’ve ever met. And I don’t mean mentally, he just doesn’t move quickly at all no matter what the urgency.

He takes an hour to get out of bed and stand up in the morning. He takes an hour to eat. When we go anywhere we have to tell him 20 minutes in advance because he takes that long to get his shoes on. His showers…we had to install an industrial sized water heater and hook it up to his shower exclusively because he would drain the tank and shower in ice cold water and started getting sick from it.

The worst part is that even if you help him out he doesn’t go faster. We can feed him and he’ll just swallow slower. We can wash him and he’ll just sit there for longer.

I’ve learned to live with it and be content because I know he won’t change. But my wife can’t take it. Just the other day she told me she was going to punish him to make him go quicker:

“I’ve had it with him! I’m going to start giving him timeouts and taking away toys for going so slow!”

“Honey,” I said, “it’ll never work.”

“Why not?!”

“Because you can’t rush Art.”

Being tired and weary, the lawyer-onion isn't sure whether to go, but decides he needs cheering up.

So he dresses smartly, puts on his favorite aftershave and heads over to his friend's.

He gets to the party to find it quite a packed affair and heads over to the bar - fighting through crowds of reveller-onions - to get a drink.

As he gets to the bar, he notices in one corner a slightly out-of-place female onion.

She looks a bit sad and being the compassionate onion that he is, he heads over to talk to her.

This is quickly affirmed as a good move, as they hit it off immediately; she was abandoned by her friends shortly after arriving and had been minding her own business ever since, but over a night of drinks and talking, they quickly fall into an infatuation and soon end up spending an oniony night of passion together.

When they awake in the morning, they don't find it awkward and a steady relationship between the two is struck.

This lasts a good while, having its ups and downs like any college relationship, but eventually the day comes when they both graduate.

The two couldn't be happier!

They both get jobs close to one another and move into an apartment together.

One day, the partner-onion is anxiously awaiting the lawyer-onion at home.

She's been ill all day and checking has confirmed her suspicions.

She tearfully - and joyfully - breaks the news to the lawyer-onion; they're going to have a tiny baby-onion together.

A shallot, if you will.

A few days later, this prompts the lawyer-onion to propose to his heretofore girlfriend-onion.

They are soon wed, having a fantastic wedding-day and husband and wife-onions are on top of the world.

The day comes of the birth and no complications - a tiny, healthy baby onion is born to two proud parents.

Seeing this little bundle of oniony love in their arms causes them to fall deeper in love than ever.

Over the next few years, husband-and-wife-onions' lives are fantastic.

He's prospering at work, she's really enjoying taking some time to raise the baby-onion and over time the baby-onion grows into a hale and hearty toddler-onion, who then becomes a child-onion.

One day, the idyll of the onions' lives is shattered when tragedy strikes.

The lawyer-onion (now a partner-onion in a prestigious law firm due to chance and hard work) is at work, and mother-onion is washing dishes and watching her child play in the yard.

She glances away to take another plate and turns her vision back to

Quick backstory, my Dad was rushed to the hospital last night with an acute pericardial effusion. Of course, we didn't know the cause at the time, so when the Doc came into my Dads room in the ER to tell him what's going on and what they were going to do, emergency surgery, this is how the conversation went...

Doc: Mr FloatyMcBoatFace's Dad, You have fluid building up around your heart, an Acute Pericardial Effusion, and we have to go to surgery right away to get that fluid out of there.

My Dad: Well, good thing it isn't an Obtuse Pericardial Effusion...

The entire family groaned. The Dr and Nurse couldn't help but laugh after a few seconds of what I assume was shock.

Anyway, he seems to be doing fine, he's still in the hospital under observation though.

So the lion starts running towards the dog with menace but the dog notices this and starts to panic.

As he's about to run he sees some bones on the ground next to him, gets an idea and says loudly, "Mmm... That was some good lion meat!"

The lion screeches to a halt and says, "Woah! This guy seems tougher then he looks, I better leave while I can" and then runs away.

Over in a tree, is a monkey who sees everything and realizes the he can benefit from this situation by telling the lion what happened and getting something in return.

So the monkey finds the lion and tells him what really happened.

The lion says to the monkey angrily, "Get on my back, we'll get him together".

So the monkey climbs on the lion's back and they start rushing back to the dog.

The dog sees them, realizes what has happened and starts to panic even more.

But then he gets another idea and shouts, "Where is that monkey!?! I told him to bring me another lion an hour ago!"

She told me she had everything, and I was in a rush. So it got left behind. Figured it out right away as we were getting him changed and messaged my wife. She said she would bring it right away. I told my son "You mom is going to run your jersey over"

Without skipping a beat, he replied "Well that won't work, practice will probably be over. I wish she would just drive it over"

Then he gave me a huge grin. I told him he won the dad joke of the day and he continued smiling all the way until bedtime.

But there were some baby goats there using alchemy to paper money into coins near the exit. As I rushed out the door, I tripped over some of their stacks of coins, which knocked me out til the police showed up.

I was so close! And, honestly, I would have gotten away with it too... if it weren't for those metaling kids.

After many years of wandering, he finally arrived in a small village in the middle of nowhere. The people there believed in the same religion as he did, but they had no church; they had to go to the nearest one which was in a small town 25 km's from there. The priest took the initiative, asked the Church for support, and with the help of the local men they built their own temple. From there on, he was celebrating the Sunday masses, joining together men and women in Holy Matrimony, and saying prayers at the funerals.

Many years passed by like that.

At the end of an ordinary mass, in early spring, on a chilly Sunday morning he was just guiding the people out of the church, was about to close the gates when an unknown man stepped into the churchyard.

With his dirty and torn clothes, he stood before the priest and said:

• Priest, please be good and give me half a lemon! - the priest was a good man, and even though he thought the request was a bit strange, he went back to the rectory, took out a lemon, cut it in half, took it back to the man and gave it to him, who looked back to the priest with gratitude. However, the priest was curious. He asked:

• Son, why do you need this half of a lemon? - with a fright on his face, and before the priest could have said a thing, he rushed out of the churchyard gate and took off.

A week later, around the same time, when the priest was leaving the church, he found himself in front of the same man in the churchyard. The man said:

• Priest, please be good and give me half a lemon! - the priest was surprised by the appearance of the man and his strange request. Of course he was good, went back to the rectory, and brought the half lemon. Placed it in the stranger’s hand and immediately he asked:

• Here it is, my dear son, but please tell me why do you need this half a lemon? - the man was obviously frightened and immediately ran away but the priest was not sluggish either and ran after him. He wasn’t in a very good condition, he has never run so much and so fast before so he was out of breath by the end of the village, almost fainted. He thought the strange man might appear again next week, and it would be nice if he could keep up with him, so he spent his week working on his cardio. It turned out to be a good idea, because as he thought, the stranger entered the churchyard on Sunday. The priest didn’t even wait for the request, he was good, and brought the half lemon. He received these words from the man:

• Thank you

In the not too distant future, web censorship is pervasive; speech and freedom are strangers to one another; while pirates sail the seas with impunity, digital pirates are incarcerated by the busload.

Anyone who speaks out against this ban on open-dialogue or the free-sharing-of-ideas is ground down and hidden away, and the resistance is loosing its will.

A small group of contributors to reddit, huddled together in a bunker beneath barely-waving flags of Snoo, worked tirelessly to repost new ideas from around the internet, to release ideas from their chains, and make speech free ... again!

But it was not to be - a gang of the governments anti-piracy enforcers descended on this, the last bastion of humankind's will to share-freely. Arriving in an armored bus, ten shock-troopers breached the bunker and it looked like the day was lost.

Fortunately for us all, one brave redditor led the collective out a back entrance and they circled to the driveway. This leader told the other redditors to wait in the bushes while he overpowered the one soldier left guarding the transport. There was a flash of movement, a crack from a fallen branch as it struck the guard, and then, stolen keys in hand, the hero revved the engine and told the redditors to pile in.

He had to will himself ignore the gas gauge as he floored the accelerator on the 25,000 pound ticket to freedom - there was only survival or defeat, and nothing in between. Sirens came alive behind him as he rushed for the border to the promised land, to the Free-North.

As the engine begins to cough, the titanic weight of the transport cleaves the barricades asunder and the pursuing vehichles have to hard-brake to avoid skidding beyond their corrupt jurisdiction. Both exhausted and elated, the redditors follow their hero to the freedom promised by their new surroundings ... but their peril is not yet passed.

Though most of the pirate-hunters glower from the south-side of the border, one special agent has crossed over and is speaking with the border guards. The tension is thick. A long-faced guard turns to the newcomers, clearly troubled by what he must do.

"Folks," he says, a pained look on his kindly face, "I'm sorry, to do this, don't cha' know, but I got no choice, eh!"

Confused, the redditors look to one another, and tremble as they notice the agent's smug expression, greedy eyes fixed on the leader of the exodus.

"Look here, now, you are all welcome here, of course, and since speech is free here, we are

An ancient Babylonian general was involved in a plot to overthrow the king. But, the plot was uncovered, and the king threw him in jail.

The general managed to escape and he fled to a ziggurat several kilometers away to meet his followers. Unfortunately, the ziggurat was one of several in the area, and he wasn't sure his men would find the right one. So, the fugitive general lit a small fire to signal them.

The other generals of the king's army saw the smoke coming from the ziggurat, and they rushed over and killed him.

The moral of the story?

The searching general has determined that smoking ziggurats can be extremely hazardous to your stealth.

My youngest daughter hates wearing shoes to the point where I hardly ever see them on her. As a result she often loses them. A few weekends ago my girlfriend dropped me and the kids off at the local outdoor pool so we could get some energy out before a long drive to see family. As expected my youngest barely made it out of the parking lot with her shoes on, and as soon as we hit the grass by the pool she kicked them off and we all ran into the water to play and stuff.

I looked up at that big incomprehensible clock they have at swimming pools and saw that we were running late for that long drive, so we fled the pool rushed around getting dressed, only to discover one ... one of her shoes was missing. I was like ... how the hell do you lose one shoe? So we looked all around, then we went to the lost and found. Strangely there were several other single shoes in the lost and found but not hers. We went back and I called her mom to see if we could swing by and grab a spare pair of shoes.

Some kid next to us overheard me on the phone and said, "Hey did you lose a shoe?" I said, " ... yeah ...?" He said, "Yeah I found it over here -- " pointing like 10 feet away -- " so I took it to the cashier's office." (not the lost and found). My oldest daughter, always helpful, ran to the cashier's office and got the shoe, and all was well! We were only about 20 minutes late. Afterwards I was pondering what I could have done to avoid all that and then it hit me. I just needed to make sure that after my kids take off their shoes they are all in one place.

In other words I had just failed to put shoe and shoe together.

My Dad loves to tell this joke when he meets new people. When he met my fiance, I led him into it and he took the bait seamlessly.

"I went out to check my mail and saw my neighbor mowing his lawn. As I was going back inside, I heard the mower mess up and him screaming. I ran over and saw he had run over his foot. It was terrible, he had been wearing flip flops. His big toe was cut off and his foot was very bloody. I immediately called 911, then yelled for my wife to help. I used my shirt to wrap up his bloody foot up and saw that his big toe was lying a few feet away in the grass clippings. I told my wife to bring me our cooler with an ice pack, then I put the toe in the cooler. A few minutes later the ambulance arrived, and they rushed him off to the hospital. I was quite relieved but as I turned to go back inside, I realized the EMTs forgot the cooler."

At this point he pauses for a long time, and the listener invariably cries, "What did you do!?"

He takes a moment, and calmly responds, 'Well, I called a tow truck!"

He was trying to get into a club one night, the club was busy, and when he got to the front of the line he could see the bouncer looking for an excuse to turn him away. "Sorry sir, you're just not dressed smart enough," He said, "you'll have to put on a tie."

So my dad starts walking up and down the street, asking people if he could borrow or buy their tie (he really needed to get in) but most people took him for some crazy person and turned him away. After trying for 10 minutes he saw a road side assistant car down the street. He rushed up to the operator and said "Please, I know you're not generally for this but by any chance do you have a tie I can borrow?" The serviceman replies "Sorry sir the best I can do is tie this set of jumper leads around your neck" He ties the leads around dad's neck and make it look all nice (making sure to hide the copper clips in his shirt), and dad heads back to the club. The bouncer looks him up and down again, nods and says, "You can come in, but don't start anything."

My mother, my father, and I were eating lunch and just about finished when the Busser lady comes and clears my plate

Her: no rush, no rush...just cleaning up.

My Dad: oh we're American...

Her:confused and walks away with my finished plate.

I bite: What do you mean?

My Dad: We're not Russian, we're American.

My mom: rolls here eyes

My friend's sister is talking about how rushing is coming up for her sorority and how she's nervous.

Sister: "Rushing is a few months away and I'm already freaking out about that!"

Dad: "Well maybe you should slow down."