Tension Puns

told her it's because she got too much o' tension

But I think it will work out Indian (In-di-an).

She told me to go sleep on the apri-cot.

It's getting a little over the top.

is that me and my wife both enjoy tug-of-war

and so do I

Because compression is the opposite of tension!

It’s always the centre of a tension.

So there were 6 of us...

With freezing rain pouring down on us at the end of a long work day, and in the middle of a daunting task- pulling underground cables, linking four transformers together (a task where something goes wrong about 50% of the time)

There is a jet line (pulling line) attached to the head of the cable being ran, and as we are nearing completion I hear my foreman (standing at the endpoint) yell "THE JET LINE IS FRAYING!!!".

Without pause I scream back "I was a FRAYED this would happen!"

The tension on the line ceases, and I look around and see 5 blank expressions just staring back at me.

Best day of my comedic life

• Like all cherished things in this covid-crazy world, the O.Henry Museum’s famous free, family friendly celebration of the wit-in-word will take place virtually in cyberspace this year. With an awesome live cast of lively wits and tortured tongues, the online audience will be treated to all the linguistic twists, dramatic turns, and surprise endings they’ve groan to love. Expect to witness wacky word butchers and voracious verbivores from around the globe, all worming their way into your ears. Tongues of tradition, tension and camaraderie make this the premier event for the world's competitive wordplay community
• Brought to you this year by the City of Austin, Brush Square Museums Foundation, and co- sponsored by Austin's very own Fantastic Magic Camp, as well as the internationally renowned podcast, Pun Intensive, The O. Henry Museum Pun-Off World Championships Punslingers Competition: Online Edition will commence Saturday, November 21, 2020
• Preliminary live rounds begin Saturday, November 21, 2020, at 11:00am CST, lasting about 2 hours. Later that evening, live competition resumes at 7:00pm CST with head-to-head prime time heats. - See Pun-Off.com for schedule details, links, and more.

[Austin, TX, November 1, 2020] - Although traditionally held outdoors on a single day in the spring, the first portion 2020 the O. Henry Museum Pun-Off competition known as Punniest of Show was conducted via video in October. Now on Saturday, November 21, 2020, PARD will bring you their most popular second segment, O. Henry Museum Pun-Off World Championships Punslingers Competition: Online Edition

This free, fun, and family friendly event will take place online this year, but with special twists, turns, and surprise modifications to make it the perfect 2020 event for the world's competitive wordplay community.

The O. Henry Museum Pun-Off World Championships have been an Austin institution for 43 years. As usual, the contest will feature a cavalcade of word-class wordsmiths from across the globe, all worming their way into your art. Join and enjoy us as they compete to spontaneously spit out the most absurd words you’ve ever heard.

The event will be live streamed at PunIntensive.com.

I guess you could say I have Surface tension.

Surface Tension

He's the scenter of a tension.

Tension is what keeps my shoulder blades together!!!

I have to give a workshop on anxiety and depression today and I would like to have some jokes locked in to defuse the tension if needed. I usually don't have much trouble to come up with dad jokes on the go, but it would be nice to have some in the back burner. Thanks!

A significant portion of them would drown...

Short tension span

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

He told me it was all in my head.

So we are both in the kitchen cooking on the stove. I'm stirring the pasta and feel it is sticking on the bottom. He notices and says:

Him: is it sticking?

Me: a little on the bottom

Him: Well turn it down.

Me (directly at pot on stove): I'm sorry, I don't like you that way, I think we should just be friends.

Him: (blank stare, shaking head)

I have a tension to detail.

So, I went to this garage sale advertised in my area, and these people lived on this hill, so I was driving really hoping that it was worth it. And OH. MY. GOD. I found the cutest coaster ever. It was a work of art, and I was so intrigued to find out that it was the last thing the owner's great grandmother had made. And so as I was heading back to my car, I tripped, and the coaster got sent flying down the hill on it's side, only breaking when it hit a tree on the way down. To ease up tensions, I chuckled a bit.

I laughed, they cried, it was a roller-coaster of emotions.

We're oddly competetive about our omlette-making abilities, so tensions were already high.

Him, attempting to flip an omlette:

"Damn, it folded"

Me:

"Y'know, omlette this one slide, but you better step it up"

It was the center of a-tension.

I was home earlier than normal, and dad was in basement.

Dad: "Who's there, I'm armed." Me: "I'm legged." Both: Laugh. Tension gone

So I just realized that my "epic" theatre joke is also a dadjoke.

Now this requires some explaining before I get to the joke. I just completed my 55th theatre production - mostly community theatre; most designing and running sound, but I get on stage sometimes. A decade or so ago, I came up with a terrible pun. Told it, got groans, and promptly forgot about it.

A production or two later, someone said - "Hey, aren't you going to tell your joke?" It took a little prompting to remind me of it. Once I was reminded, I told the joke - to more groans.

I enjoyed the groans so much - and was touched that someone remembered the joke that I'd forgotten. So I did decide it was going to forevermore be: THE JOKE.

So the NEXT production, I started warning people that "The Joke" was coming. One or two remembered the previous time I'd told it, and reacted - "Oh god. Please no."

So now it has truly become a thing. Every production I'm in, I start reminding people that The Joke is coming, and the reactions from those who know the joke really help set up the anticipation.

So finally it happens. Most theatre productions I've been in run Fri-Sat-Sun performances. And thus, as I explain, I can only tell The Joke after the last Friday night's performance ends, and before the last Saturday's performance begins. It shifts if the days are different because The Joke depends on the number of remaining shows.

So, finally that time period comes, and I explain that I can only tell the joke during that time period, only the once per production - from auditions to strike - and that we're in that period of time.... which is known as.... the "cancer period". AND would you like to know WHY this period of time is known as the "cancer period"?

(at which point the tension for the punchline is usually quite palpable)

"Because we have...... TUMOR!" (as I hold up two fingers).

This is usually followed by shouts to "GET OUT!" and threats of violence against my person. hehehe

And the NEXT time, when I start warning that "The Joke" is coming, most of these groan "Oh god... no...." and helps set it up for the next poor bunch of folks who haven't yet heard it. :)

Backstory: Many years ago I was living on my own about 45 minutes away from my parents. I had a stable job but didn't make much money and was broke most of the time. I had an old beat up car that was my only form of transportation. I would always have mechanical issues with the car and finally one morning it decided it wouldn't start no matter what.

I sheepishly had to call in to work and explain the situation and let them know that I would have to take a sick day but would figure some way to get to work the next day. I called my dad and he offered to come pick the car up on his trailer and take it back to his garage to work on it and get it in shape to trade it in.

He drives to my apartment, we get the car on the trailer and we are headed back to his house. The whole ride there I'm pretty pissed off and depressed about the whole situation. I'm worried about finding a new car and how I'm going to afford it and what I'm gonna do if I can't get it running again.

Dad senses my mood and pretty much keeps quiet the whole time. We get about three blocks away from his house and he utters this gem.

"Man, this car won't get off my ass. He's been tailgating me for 45 minutes now."

This was the perfect thing to snap me out of my funk and break the tension. I absolutely lost it. Only a Dad Joke could make me realize how trivial the whole thing was. I have told this joke to others who didn't really think it was that funny, but to me at the time it was the greatest thing ever.

Thanks Dad.

is a tension whore.

As I'm sure many of you can remember (or not), senior prom was one of the most exciting events of our pre-real world existence. However, in order to get to the actual event, there were three significant steps that needed to be taken care of:

1. Sober up enough before actually getting to the venue
2. Find a date who wasn't even weirder than you were
3. Rent a tuxedo This last part posed quite a bit of a problem to me, mostly because tuxedos can be very expensive to come by. Luckily enough for me, a local formalwear shop had a great deal going on; they would give you massive discounts and even hefty prizes for referring as many of your friends as possible to their business. Eager as I was to save a few bucks, I proceeded to text everyone in my phone's contact list. Almost every one of them neglected to respond to my pitiful pleas of financial assistance, not wanting to get caught up in this scam that I myself had meandered into. Finally, my token black friend, Malik, unwillingly took my bait. He tentatively responded, asking more about what he could get out of the deal for himself. After much persistence on my part, he finally declined, trying his best to let me down gently. As my poor little heart finally broke completely in two, I decided to alleviate the social tension, replying to him, "Alright man, well, suit yourself."

Me looking at crooked blinds: "There's not enough tension on that side."

Dad: "So you might say it has a... tension deficit disorder?"

The clerk was giving him change, and she ran out of tens.

Clerk: "Chelsea! We need more tens!"

Dad: after a few minutes "Where is Chelsea? She needs to remove this awkward TENsion..."

Friend 1: He was electrocuted by playing with high tension wires. Friend 2: Oh my god. I wonder how much that would hurt. Me: He was probably in shock... Friend 1+2 glare

So a couple friends and I are watching a movie in one of my friend's basement (The Master of Disguise - Netflix lol). And his dad comes downstairs and in the most intimidating, serious voice says, "Nick, what do I do when you do something wrong?" The tension in the room skyrockets, and Nick says nonchalantly, "Nothing." His dad then slickly replies, "I scream... there's ice cream on the table if you want any."

Chuckling intensifies.

It’s always at the centre of a tension.

It’s always the centre of a tension.

It’s always the centre of a tension.

It’s always the centre of a tension.

Because it is the centre of a tension.

It’s always the centre of a tension.

Because it is the centre of a tension.