Bring on the Puns!

I love puns. I find them almost impossible to come up with myself. (I thought the title of this post ought to be a pun, but I couldn't think of one.) Which makes me that much more delighted when other people come up with them.

In general I'm often slow to get a joke. And if it's based on a popular movie, I'll probably never get it. I think it's a combination of my general gullibility and the way I understood jokes to work as a kid. I thought someone would tell a joke, then you would look blankly at them, then they would explain the joke, and then you would groan. I thought this because of my dad's jokes. Here's an example (told to me and my sister when we were very little):

"A man was climbing a mountain. He came across a group of natives throwing rocks at birds. He asked them why they were throwing rocks at the birds. 'Up here,' one man said, 'we believe in never leaving a tern unstoned.' "

My sister and I looked blankly at my dad. He explained stoning and defined a tern and told us about the saying to "never leave a stone unturned".

"Ohhhh. . . " we said.

Anyway, a few weeks ago my husband made some pun and I was inordinately delighted with it. I'm not sure how he had failed to notice before that how easily pleased and impressed I am by puns, but he was clearly struck by it, and for the last few weeks has been missing no opportunity to make puns.

"What's for breakfast?" he asked me two weeks ago on a lazy Saturday.

"Egg on toast," I said.

"C'mon toast! C'mon toast! You can do it!"

I smiled but looked a little questioning.

"I'm egging on the toast."

"Ohhh, of course!" And I was delighted.

A few night later, I was busy at the stove with the tiny cast iron pan.

"What are you doing, baby?" he asked.

"Toasting nuts," I said, bringing them over to the table to spoon over our dinner, some Asian-style noodle and broccoli dish I had made up.

He raised his glass. "To nuts!"

Obligingly I raised mine too, pleased that he liked nuts so much. I myself thought they added a definite classiness to the dish in question.

And then I figured it out. "Ohhh! You were toasting the nuts!"

And then just a few days ago the whole family was hanging out on the living room rug. The baby was chewing on one of his beautiful hand-knitted hats, I was folding laundry, and my husband was eating a chocolate chip cookie.

"What's wrong, Baby Bruz," he asked. "Did something not turn out as expected? Was there a shocking turn of events?"

I knew this was a joke of some kind, and I cudgeled my brains. Could it be something about "shocking"? Like a shock of hair? Can't you have a shock of wheat or something?

My husband took pity on me. "He's eating his hat. Y'know, if 'blank' happens, I'll eat my hat!"

And I laughed and laughed.