Surface Go Puns

It was his own asphalt

A man was recruited for a space colony

He had been posted to a planet 14 light-years from Sol. As his ship landed on the planet's glowing surface, he saw a car waiting for him.

"Welcome to Anti-Earth," The driver said, "don't worry we are going to change the name soon. I am here to take you to your quarters and show you the colony on the way."

They had been driving for a couple of minutes when the recruit saw glowing buildings far away.

"Why are the buildings shining like that?", he asked.

"Didn't they brief you about the colony?", the driver asked "We don't call it Anti-Earth for no reason, it's literally the opposite of Earth. Any element rare on Earth is as common as carbon (C) here, and interestingly carbon (C) doesn't occur naturally here. So we had to make good of what we had, the buildings are made of rare metals like radium (Ra) which glow in the dark."

After half an hour they arrived at what seemed the main highway, the road had a faint bluish glow and the sides were lined with metallic posts shining faintly in the double moonlight. They stopped near a small dilapidated shack with the words "COMMUNICATION OFFICE" crudely etched on the walls.

"This is your office. You are supposed to handle communications for the colony," the driver said. "We can't use any wireless communication as the high amount of radioactive gases in the atmosphere interferes with the signal, so we have to use a type of telegraph instead. Come on, I'll show you our most important resource."

They walked a bit till they reached a plantation full of bizarre trees. Some were made of precious metals, some of common earth metals and some of them were glowing radioactively.

"This is the plantation for building the posts. We brought these seeds from Earth and planted them, apparently as they couldn't get the conventional elements they just used what the soil contained. We just sell the gold (Au), silver (Ag) and platinum (Pt) trees to Earth, the iron (Fe) and aluminium (Al) are used for constructing equipment and there are some pretty rare elements like uranium (U) and astatine (At) (which is the rarest element on Earth) which are used for scientific research. However, these aren't what we are here for."

The driver motioned him to follow him towards a small area of trees with a silvery sheen to them.

"These are made of rhenium (Re) one of the densest elements with one of the highest melting and boiling points. It is strong enough to withstand the toxic atmosphere and radioa

Sorry, that was me scraping the bottom of the barrel for a joke.

I could go on.

Am barely scratching the surface.

When I walked in the place was great, everything was perfect apart from the kitchen. There were gas mains but no cooker! Work surfaces and water pipes, but no sink; empty plugs and spaces for where the fridge and freezer should sit.

When I bought the house I was told it was fully furnished! Furious, I called up intending to give whomever answered an earful.

I was told that everything should be arriving individually, and the house is being used as an experiment for completely autonomous, self thinking kitchen appliances!

Before I could reply there was a knock on the door. I opened it and a stove strolled in, tilted forward in a bow, slid past me and set itself into its spot! Even attaching itself to the gas mains!

Later that day another knock at the door signalled the arrival of the fridge and freezer.(who had travelled together) They bowed and sat themselves perfectly in place in my new kitchen. I was beaming!

That evening I was explaining to my wife how the appliances had arrived, when came another knock at the door. “This technology is going to change the world, I swear it!” I told her. “Can you answer the door? I’ve been on my feet all day”

“Yeah,” she replied, less enthusiastic than I,“but it’ll get to a point when humans are completely inferior.” She explained “When these machines develop such sentience, what’s stopping them from overthrowing us?” “Treating us as slaves, like we to them now?” She asked, distraught at theses ideas.

Knock knock

“It’s best not to worry about these things,” I said in an attempt to alleviate her fears.

“There are people- professionals developing contingencies for any possible future robot uprising!” “That future you’re frightened about is purely science fiction right now, and the way our collective knowledge and application of technology has advanced, (Even in the past 50 years!) our own scientists and engineers will be able to crush any worries we may have when the time comes.” I explained.

She sighed, agreeing somewhat reluctantly. “Don’t think on it now, have some faith!” I told her.

Knock knock

“Now let that sink in!”

Last summer, my girlfriend and I went camping. One of the days, we were having lunch by a river (a kind of a picnic sort of thing). Now, I talk a lot when I eat, so she finished eating waaaaay before I did. Once she was finished, she took to the water to cool off while I continued munching away.

Now, I guess she must have slipped or something, because all of a sudden I heard a cry and she was just gone. Washed away. I saw her head bob above the surface probably 20 yards downstream, and moving fast towards some rapids (probably 100-150 yards away). So I'm pretty panicked at this point, but she manages to grab onto a low-hanging branch (just like in a movie or something). She's coughing and sputtering and hollering for help, trying to keep a grip on the branch.

So, I set down my avocado I'd been snacking on and walked out into the water. "hurry! I can't hold on much longer," she's yelling. I kept walking towards her, but the bottom of the river was so muddy that it was probably pretty slow. She started to get angry with me "SWIM over here! Why are you walking? Please hurry!" She yelled, with great urgency. All in all, it took me probably 8 minutes to cover the 80 yards or so to get to her. After I rescued her, she was super mad for some reason. She was all "I almost died, why were you going so slow? Who does that? What's wrong with you?"

"Well," I said. "Good things are worth wading for."

When you’re going 85 on surface streets, with them behind you in flashing lights.