Puns.

​Cheri just sent me a joke from work:  why couldn’t the pepper practice archery?  Because he didn’t habanero.
There are times I wish my brain was not wired to absolutely love puns, but I guess that’s who I am.  Long before they were called “Dad jokes,” there has always been something deliciously quirky about taking words and creating almost an alternate universe!  The key to any pun, of course is that it is always set up with an ambiguous word, as the word itself means to have a double meaning, or even more basically, “to drive around.”  There is enough room in how we think of a word sometimes that it can hit us in two different levels, and it either elicits a groan, or a small laugh, and a “pretty good one” as a remark.
The truth is, you either love puns, or you hate them.  Some researchers have come to say that if you love puns, then you have a far greater than normal intelligence.  Of course, an equal number of them say if you love puns, it might be proof of damage to your frontal lobe…  whatever the case, since I get to write this column, I thought we would just enjoy a quiet start to Monday with a few of my favorite puns.  Enjoy.
What did the hamburger name it’s baby?  Patty.
I found out I’m color blind – the news came completely out of the green.
The past, present and future all walked into the bar at the same time – it was a tense moment.
They built a restaurant on the moon.  The food is good, but there’s not atmosphere.
I saw a ball getting bigger and bigger and bigger – and then it hit me.
How does Moses make coffee?  Hebrews it.
What did the buffalo say to his kid as he left?  Bison.
The first French fries were actually cooked in Greece.
What’s the difference between a rabbit and a plum?  They are both purple, except for the rabbit.
What is red, and bad for your teeth?  A brick.
I gave my vacuum away – all it was doing was collecting dust.
They reported a kidnapping at school – then he woke up.
What do you call a man with no arms or legs in a pool?  Bob.
Well, it’s also true that there can be too much of a good thing – like eating a quart of ice cream.  It starts out well, with great expectations, but somewhere along the way, it just becomes a real belly ache.  With that, I will close out the puns for Monday, and hope you have a great, and joyful day.  Take time to laugh over silly things – and do your best to help others laugh as well.  There is way too much that is deadly serious in our world not to flush it all out sometime with a good chuckle.
Peace.
 
Word for the day:  plenipotent.  Pronounced plen-IH-poe-tent.  It’s a great word, and even the pronunciation is fun to speak.  It comes from two Latin words, plenus, which means “full” and potens, (from which we get potent, or potential) meaning, “power.”  The adjective plenipotent, then, means, “possessing full power!”  The word in most cases describes someone who has full authority to make a decision or a treaty of some sort, but in a broader sense, it is someone who has the strength to do a particular task without assistance.  Think of where you might be plenipotent in your own life…