Struck Off Puns

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

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

Here's a joke my dad told me. Sorry if you've heard it, but I found it hilarious, and I think you might enjoy it.

In a small town in the suburbs, there was a small family of balloons. There was a mummy balloon, a daddy balloon, and a small child balloon. Every night the boy would sleep between his parents, but his father had had enough.

"son, I know you love sleeping between us, but you're getting a bit too old for it., " the father said. "You're nearly 8, you're a big boy, and your mother and I think you should sleep in your own bed from now on. You can stay tonight but starting tomorrow we want you in your own bed. Do you understand?"

"Yeah dad, I understand..." the boy said with a maudlin tinge to his voice.

"okay son, I love you."

"love you too dad"

The next night the boy tried sleeping in his own bed, but there was a storm outside. It was a dark, ominous storm - the kind of storm that sounds like a cataclysm for the end of the world.

The boy was scared, so he went to sleep in his parents room. However when he tried to squeeze between them, he found he didn't fit. He felt defeated. He felt scared. He felt alone.

But then an idea struck him. He decided he'd just let a little bit of air out of his father. He tried to squeeze in again, but had no such luck. So he let a little bit of air out of his mother. He tried again. Still no luck. Finally, he decided to let some air out of himself. Success! He squeezed in tightly and drifted off to sleep.

The next morning his parents were furious. His father was feeling particularly angry, and screamed at his son.

"son, I told you not to sleep in our room. I told you to sleep in your own bed! Didn't I say that Hun?"

"yes dear," the mother said, feeling slightly deflated.

"so son, what do you have to say for yourself?" the father asked in anger.

"it was dark and stormy and..." the boy tried to spit out.

"I don't care son!" the father interrupted. "you can't keep doing this! I'm very disappointed. You've let me down, you've let me down, but worst of all..."

First off, I'm new here. I've only been a dad for a few years but, I'm not sure i'll ever be able to top this and the circumstances of the set up were so chance and specific, I will never be able to use this again. This is what inspired me to seek you out and tell my story.

So, like most thanksgivings, we went to a relatives house and had very large but unusually early dinner. We went home and by nine or ten o'clock we had the little one off to sleep and my wife and I were getting hungry and wanted something simple. She asked for fast food and I was willing to oblige.

I drove to Taco Bell and it was closed. I called my wife, "sorry Taco Bell is closed. What do you want from BK?". I then drove to BK and discovered it was also closed. Called the wife "Sorry honey, BK is closed. What do you want from McDonald's?". You might see were this is going and, if you haven't already guessed it, Micky D's was closed too."Ok, I'm just going to the gas station. What do you want?" She asked for cheddar fries and I was willing to oblige. Got in side, no cheddar fries! I grab her funyuns. She like funyuns, it will be fine. As a joke (not the one we are leading up to) I called her on my way home and told her the gas station was closed too.

I got home, told her the truth about the gas station and gave her the back up back up back up back up back up plan bag of funyuns. She joked around about the number of times I had failed her in one outing (keep in mind, I had been giving her a hard time through this whole event) and then asked me for a soda from the fridge. So is This when the magic happened. I was opening the fridge when the gravity of the situation and what was at stake here suddenly struck me. I closed the fridge, got out a glass and filled it with water. I brought it back to her in the living room. She says "why did you bring me water?"

THE FRIDGE WAS CLOSED!