Track & Field Puns

He asks the assistant “Do you have ‘European Vespidae Acoustics Volume 2? I believe it was released this week.”

“Certainly,” replies the assistant. “Would you like to listen before you buy it?”

"That would be wonderful," says the expert, and puts on a pair of headphones.

He listens for a few moments and says to the assistant, “I'm terribly sorry, but I am the world's leading expert on European wasps and this is not accurate at all. I don't recognize any of those sounds. Are you sure this is the correct recording?”

The assistant checks the turntable, and replies that it is indeed European Vespidae Acoustics Volume 2. The assistant apologizes and lifts the needle onto the next track.

Again the expert listens for a few moments and then says to the assistant, "No, this just can't be right! I've been an expert in this field for 43 years and I still don't recognize any of these sounds."

The assistant apologizes again and lifts the needle to the next track.

The expert throws off the headphones as soon as it starts playing and is fuming with rage.

"This is outrageous false advertising! I am the world's leading expert on European wasps and no European wasp has ever made a sound like the ones on this record!"

The manager of the shop overhears the commotion and walks over.

"What seems to be the problem, sir?"

"This is an outrage! I am the world's leading expert on European wasps. Nobody knows more about them than I do. There is no way in hell that the sounds on that record were made by European wasps!"

The manager glances down and notices the problem instantly.

"I'm terribly sorry, sir. It appears we've been playing you the bee side."

Trevor loved tractors. And I mean, really loved tractors. Forget any obsessions or high-level interests you may have, chances are they pale in the face of Trevor’s love for tractors.

Every day Trevor would get up, in his tractor-themed bedroom in his tractor-themed house, with its tractor-themed wallpaper and tractor-themed carpets, and he would make his bed with its tractor-themed duvet and tractor-themed sheets. He would go downstairs in his tractor-themed pajamas into his tractor-themed kitchen, with its tractor-themed tiles and cupboards, and he would eat his breakfast while perusing the latest tractor-themed magazine or annual.

Trevors’s degree in Agricultural Engineering hung on his living room wall, along with a copy of his thesis, which centred around (you guessed it) tractors. The living room was decorated with all sorts of tractor-related trinkets, including die-cast models, paintings and drawings.

The hedges in Trevor’s front garden were trimmed in the shape of tractors. His lawn was vividly decorated with tractor-driving garden gnomes, and his garden furniture was constructed from various parts from vintage tractor designs.

Trevor just had one thing missing from his otherwise tractor-centric life; he had never actually owned, nor driven, a real tractor.

Not for his lack of trying, of course. Trevor had been to many tractor shows over the years, and visited many farms with friends of his, but none of the tractors he had seen had ever been quite right. Trevor was so knowledgeable about tractors that every single one he had come across had possessed some hidden trait that he wasn’t keen on. His first experience of driving a real tractor had to be perfect.

One day, Trevor was flicking through one of his favourite publications, Powertrain Quarterly, when there was a knock at the door. Trevor answered, and it was his friend and fellow tractor enthusiast, Jeff.

Trevor welcomed Jeff in, and over tea and crumpets served on tractor-themed crockery, they discussed the merits of aluminium drawbars and front-end loaders. Eventually Trevor pressed Jeff to explain the reason for his visit.

“Well” said Jeff, “As I’m sure you know the convention comes to town later”.

The convention. Trevor had been thinking of little else the past three weeks. The neighbouring town annually threw a convention for farmers, particularly farmyard machinery. There would be combine harvesters, lawnmowers, and of course, tractors.

“Yes of course” replied Trevor

the Japanese Olympic Track and field team, in typical Asian make-every-thing-harder-to-do-than-it-has-to-be fashion have announced that hey are sticking by their regimen of only using malformed, decade-and-a-half old, equipment rigged to pop out of the course unexpectedly in order to secure their hopes of Olympic glory. While this may seem counter intuitive, Kadauo Osakamizu, a analyst for the team claims there is actually a historic cultural precedent for the odd exercises. In a quote, Mr. Osakamizu insists that the idea is that "if the team can excel with such sub-par materials, executing wins when the equipment is good should be of little concern."

So it seems that at least for the foreseeable future, Japan will be pinning their hopes on Teenage, Mutant, Ninja Hurdles.

We were at a bookstore, and my dad was looking at animal field guides:

Me: Hey look, this one says it's for "Texas Wildlife Scats and Tracks."

Dad: Oh yeah? Picks it up

Me: Yeah! With that you'd be able to to tell who's poops were who's.

Dad: Well yeah, it's scratch and sniff.

Said it so matter of fact that I almost missed it.

Yesterday was Opening Day (baseball) at Target Field (Minnesota). The first 10,000 or so fans received a free blue zip-up hoodie with "Twins" emblazoned on the front. It's a damn fine hoodie.

It's also packed on the stadium concourse. 40,123 attendees that day. As my husband and I are making our way through a dense crowd along the right field concourse, an older gentleman stops me in my tracks with this big grin and says, "Wow, that's a great sweatshirt! Where'd you get it?"

He was holding one in his hand.

His other hand was holding that of his wife, who was rolling her eyes pretty hard. I imagine that was neither the first nor last time he'd made that joke yesterday.