Funny Friday

I came across a pic of the above T shirt after posting yesterday’s item about guns. It was clear to me that a sign was being given from on high (“I'm not normally a praying man, but if you're up there, please save me, Superman!” - Homer Simpson) to go forth and pun, to spread the groans on Punny Friday. 

But did not Lewis Carroll have a low opinion on puns? 

“The Good and Great must ever shun

That reckless and abandoned one

Who stoops to perpetrate a pun.”

-Lewis Carroll 

True, but the main attribute of a pun is the groans which follow it. Puns are meant to be groaned at. 

Here is a collection of dreadful puns sent to me by Byter Sue, followed by one sent by Byter Leo. 

Funny Friday will return to normal next week. 

King Ozymandias of Assyria was running low on cash after years of war with the Hittites. His last great possession was the Star of the Euphrates , the most valuable diamond in the ancient world. Desperate, he went to Croesus, the pawnbroker, to ask for a loan. Croesus said, "I'll give you 100,000 dinars for it". "But I paid a million dinars for it," the King protested. "Don't you know who I am? I am the king!" Croesus replied, "When you wish to pawn a Star, makes no difference who you are." 

Evidence has been found that William Tell and his family were avid bowlers. Unfortunately, all the Swiss league records were destroyed in a fire, ... and so we'll never know for whom the Tells bowled. 

A man rushed into a busy doctor's office and shouted, "Doctor! I think I'm shrinking!" The doctor calmly responded, "Now, settle down. You'll just have to be a little patient." 

A marine biologist developed a race of genetically engineered dolphins that could live forever if they were fed a steady diet of seagulls. One day, his supply of the birds ran out so he had to go out and trap some more. On the way back, he spied two lions asleep on the road. Afraid to wake them, he gingerly stepped over them. Immediately, he was arrested and charged for ... 

"Transporting gulls across sedate lions for immortal porpoises." 

Back in the 1800's the Tate's Watch Company of Massachusetts wanted to produce other products, and since they already made the cases for watches, they used them to produce compasses. The new compasses were so bad that people often ended up in Canada or Mexico rather than California . This, of course, is the origin of the expression, ... "He who has a Tate's is lost!" 

A thief broke into the local police station and stole all the toilets and urinals, leaving no clues. A spokesperson was quoted as saying, "We have absolutely nothing to go on." 

An Indian chief was feeling very sick, so he summoned the medicine man. After a brief examination, the medicine man took out a long, thin strip of elk rawhide and gave it to the chief, telling him to bite off, chew, and swallow one inch of the leather every day. After a month, the medicine man returned to see how the chief was feeling. The chief shrugged and said, "The thong is ended, but the malady lingers on." 

A famous Viking explorer returned home from a voyage and found his name missing from the town register. His wife insisted on complaining to the local civic official who apologized profusely saying, "I must have taken Leif off my census." 

There were three Indian squaws. One slept on a deer skin, one slept on an elk skin, and the third slept on a hippopotamus skin. All three became pregnant. The first two each had a baby boy. The one who slept on the hippopotamus skin had twin boys. This just goes to prove that ... the squaw of the hippopotamus is equal to the sons of the squaws of the other two hides. 

A skeptical anthropologist was cataloguing South American folk remedies with the assistance of a tribal Brujo who indicated that the leaves of a particular fern were a sure cure for any case of constipation. When the anthropologist expressed his doubts, the Brujo looked him in the eye and said, "Let me tell you, with fronds like these, you don't need enemas." 

Leo’s pun:

Jock, the painter, often would thin his paint so it would go further. So when the Church decided to do some deferred maintenance, Jock was able to put in the low bid, and got the job. As always, he thinned his paint way down with turpentine. One day while he was up on the scaffolding -- the job almost finished -- he heard a horrendous clap of thunder, and the sky opened. The downpour washed the thinned paint off the church and knocked Jock off his scaffold and onto the lawn among the gravestones and puddles of thinned and worthless paint. Jock knew this was a warning from the Almighty, so he got on his knees and cried: “Oh, God! Forgive me! What should I do?” And from the thunder, a mighty voice: "Repaint! Repaint! And thin no more!”

Having had so much groanworthy stuff, it is not fair to inflict a further groan with a punning limerick or something corny.

Here is a pun-free bit of humour...

A young man named Jon received a parrot as a gift. 

The parrot had a bad attitude and an even worse vocabulary. 

Every word out of the bird's mouth was rude, obnoxious and laced with profanity. 

Jon tried and tried to change the bird's attitude by consistently saying only polite words, playing soft music and anything else he could think of to "clean up" the bird's vocabulary. 

Finally Jon was fed up and he yelled at the parrot. 

The parrot yelled back. 

Jon shook the parrot and the parrot got even angrier and more rude. 

Jon in desperation, threw up his hands and grabbed the bird and put him in the freezer. 

For a few minutes the parrot squawked and kicked and screamed. 

Then, suddenly there was total quiet, not a peep was heard. 

Fearing that he had hurt the parrot, Jon quickly opened the door to the freezer. 

The parrot calmly stepped out onto Jon's outstretched arm and said "I believe I may have offended you with my rude language and actions." 

"I am sincerely remorseful for any inappropriate transgressions." 

"I fully intend to do everything I can do to correct my rude and unforgivable behavior". 

Jon was stunned at the change in the bird's attitude. 

He was about to ask the parrot why he had made such a dramatic change in his behavior, but the bird continued... "May I ask what the turkey did?"