Try Anything Once Puns

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

As a Boy Scout, we would camp a lot and go on hikes.

One night, we had to do a night hike, alone, for a merit badge. I had left the campsite about an hour earlier and a terrible storm rolled in. The sky opened up and the ground was quickly saturated. I tried to continue my hike for another few minutes, but it got cold and I was chilled and soaked to the bone, so I decided to try to head back to camp.

Lightning was starting to crackle above me, so I thought I should try to take a shortcut to make my hike back quicker. I pulled out my compass and found my direction, but the rain made it impossible to see more than five feet in front of me.

I was looking down at my compass, not paying any attention to where I was going, and suddenly felt weightless. The feeling didn't last long as I thumped down on slippery earth a second later.

I had fallen onto a ledge on the side of a rather steep cliff, the bottom of which was at least fifty feet down.

I sat there, contemplating on how to get back up this cliff as water rolled over the edge ten feet above me. There was nothing to grab onto to pull myself up. I was stuck there.

After a few minutes, I noticed the little ledge I was standing on was slowly getting smaller. The water was coming down so hard it was eroding the tiny bit of safety I had.

I dug through my pockets, thinking maybe I had something, anything, to help me out of my precarious situation. All I had was my compass, a cough drop, and a match. I was screwed.

So, I sat there, watching the edge of the ledge I was on get closer and closer to my feet, when suddenly I felt something pushing on my back.

I turned slightly and saw a wooden box sticking out of the cliff behind me. It was working its way out of the side, the rain surely helping it along. I tried to move away from it, but the ledge wasn't very wide and the box kept coming out, pushing me farther to the weak and failing edge.

As more of the box came out, to my horror, I realized it was a coffin! I had no idea how old it was, but it looked rather rotten. All I could think of was being pushed off this ledge, and the rotten coffin breaking and dropping a skeleton onto my broken and battered body at the bottom.

The coffin crept closer, my foot began to slip. I grabbed onto a root that was sticking out of the cliffside and dug in my pocket once more.

I hurriedly tore the wrapper off the cough drop and stuck it in my mouth. It stopped the coffin.

This joke has been told to me

There once was a man who had a job driving a passenger train between two large towns. It could be a very dull job to some, but as the old saying goes, one man's trash is another's gold; he wanted to be a railroad man since he was a boy.

He was a wiz behind the controls of the train, and commanded the 15 car vehicle effortlessly as if he had been born to do the job. He prided himself on the fact that he could bend the rules and speed through curves and grades that made other motormen shiver and back off.

One day however, he wasn't so lucky and came round a bend too fast and derailed his train. He backed off the throttle and braked as much as he could, managing to only have one fatality out of 500 passengers on his train.

Months later there was a trial and he was found guilty of manslaughter in the highest degree, a capital offence in that land, and sentenced to die by electric chair. Punishment came swift, unlike most places, and 3 days after sentencing the former railroader was asked for his last meal.

"I'll have a banana," "Just a single banana?" said the perplexed guard. "The warden will grant you a feast and all you want is that?"

"Just a single banana." he said.

After he downed the fruit, he was strapped into the electric chair an hour later.... The warden hit the switch, lights flickered, and the crackle of electricity could be heard for over a minute...

...but our train jockey instead rose from the chair looking more like he got a stiff massage, rather than be put to death! Well in that nation, the law of the land states that if a man somehow survives being put to death, they must be set free...

...And so it came to pass that our engineer was let go...

And for whatever reason, he got his job back!

So he was back railroading again doing the job that he loved. You'd think he'd have been more cautious with this second chance he'd been given, but you'd also be wrong. Speedy Gonzales with a train license decided to gun his locomotive to hard and send it off the tracks again!

Of course, this time he was tried for the same crime, but at a different time (his was a fair commonwealth and double indemnity was simply unheard of!) So fair was their nation, that the jury came up with the same judgement and punishment. So three days later, when asked for his last meal, the engineer simply said "I'll have 2 bananas..."

Not less than 60 minutes after consuming the last morsel was he strapped into the chair and the switch thrown... And....

NOTHING.

Way back when I was a kid, for my school's Renaissance Faire-esque fundraiser, I went around wearing a sign that read "Vilage Idiot". When guests asked why, I'd reply, "I wasn't always the village idiot...

• “I used to be a tailor... but it didn't quite suit me... It was only a so-so job.”
• “I once was a lumberjack... but I couldn't hack it... so they gave me the axe.”
• “I was a fisherman too... I just couldn't live off my net income.”
• “I thought about being a witch for a spell.”
• “I tried being a chef... but I just didn't have enough thyme for it.”
• “I was a musician once... but I didn't accomplish anything noteworthy.”
• “For awhile I was a doctor... but I didn't have the patience to keep it up.”
• “I once was a accountant... but I lost interest. The job was too taxing.”
• “I tried moonlighting as a nun... but I confess, they didn't like my altar ego... or my bad habits.”
• “More recently, I was a baker... but I couldn't make enough dough at it... Guess I wasn't bred for the job.”
• “Heck, I was even king for a day... but I didn't have any crowning achievements.”

...And so now, here I am: village idiot, just like my father was. Ah... my father, he was the best village idiot we ever had. It's hard living in his shadow sometimes. You see, my father was a complete idiot! ...I'm just a half-wit.”