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Frank and Sarah’s Pun Dilemma
Sarah had a tear in her eye.
“Our 4-day break to Edinburgh has to be cancelled, Frank!”
Sarah had been looking forward to this break since she and Frank had wandered into the Travel Agent’s High Street shop nearly 3 months ago.
“What do you mean?” asked Frank as he hung up his coat.
The perplexed look was written all over his face.
“I’ve had a phone call,” replied Sarah. “It’s no longer on. They can’t do it.”
“But they can’t cancel our break at such short notice,” said Frank, with a tone of annoyance in his voice.
“They have, though, Dear.”
Frank sat down. This was so hard to comprehend. It was only last week that Frank and Sarah had driven into town to pay the balance. But no one in the shop had said anything, then.
“Did they say why, Sarah?” asked Frank.
Sarah stared at the ceiling as she tried to remember the telephone conversation.
“Something about they couldn’t get it to work.”
“Couldn’t get it to work?”
“Yes.”
“Couldn’t get what to work?”
Sarah was beginning to resent the questioning from her husband.
“Our holiday, Frank! Our four-day break in Edinburgh! They can’t get it to work.”
“So… what else did they say?” asked Frank.
“Well, they did tell me… emm…”
“Go on!” said Frank impatiently.
“They did tell me that they could replace it with another break.”
“Another break?” blurted Frank, getting even more flustered. “Where on earth to?”
“I don’t know,” said Sarah. “I was too upset to ask”.
Frank sighed as he turned to stare out of the window.
But through her tears, Sarah continued…
“The man also told me that if we do change our break, it will cost us an extra £250.”
“Two-hundred and fifty quid?” shouted Frank. “That’s outrageous! Let me get on the phone to them!”
“Tell you what,” said Sarah. “I’ll put the kettle on first, so we can both calm down and decide what to do.”
As Sarah walked thoughtfully into the kitchen, Frank began to pace the floor, trying to figure out why the Travel Agent would have told Sarah that their break couldn’t work out – and why changing it would cost £250.
“Here, Love. Get this down you.”
Sarah passed Frank his favourite butter-shortbread biscuit.
As he dipped it into his tea, the irony was too much.
“Scottish shortbread biscuits, Sarah,” said Frank. “Sort of rubbing it in that we can’t go, eh?”
“Oh, I know, Dear,” replied Sarah. “But don’t worry. Something will work out.”
The moment of quiet contemplation was interrupted as Frank remembered he had to collect the car from the Garage before it closed.
“Has the Garage rung, Sarah?”
“Nope. No one today – except, of course, the man from the Travel Agent.”
“Hmm… I’d better call them, then.”
It wasn’t long into Frank’s telephone conversation with the Garage before he began to smile.
“So, you’re telling me…” he said.
“You’re telling me that the brake isn’t working.”
Sarah looked up from her magazine, and whispered, “Is that the Travel Agent?”
Frank stole a quick glance at Sarah, then quickly returned to the conversation with the Garage.
“And a new brake would cost us £250?”
By now, Frank’s smile had turned into a chuckle.
“Yes, please, replace the brake, he instructed. “We’ll collect the car tomorrow afternoon.”
As he hung up, Sarah asked, “Who was that, then?”, her puzzled look matching how she was feeling inside.
“That…”
Frank was now struggling to control his belly-laughter.
“That was the Garage. A brake on our car won’t work properly. To replace the brake on our car will cost us £250.”
Like a light being switched on, Sarah suddenly realised her mistake.
“Oh. Oh dear. Good job you didn’t call the Travel Agent and give them a piece of your mind, then.”
“Haha! At least we know now that the brake is no longer on our break!” said Frank, now shaking uncontrollably with laughter.
“Ooh, Frank. You’re so funny at times!”
As Sarah walked embarrassingly with the empty cups into the kitchen, she muttered under her breath, “Tell me when you’ve finished laughing.”
But this time, there was a little skip in her step.
She really was going away for her long-awaited break with Frank, after all.
How easy is it to confuse words? To come up with an unintentional pun? Here's a story about how Frank and Sarah did that. It'll have you in stitches! #pun #puns #laugh #story Click To TweetWhat’s the Point?
So why did I tell you this story?
Well… people sometimes ask me how I think up puns.
It’s quite easy, really.
Just look for confusing words such as break and brake.
And you’re good to go.
Or should that be “good to go to Goa”?
Or maybe “Going to Goa is a goer”.
Lighten up a Story
You can insert a pun or two into any story or article to lighten it up.
Recently, a friend in the Content Marketing Academy contacted me.
Kathleen was writing a technical article about how to remove bacteria from your water butt – and felt it “needed lightening up” with a few puns.
So, of course, I was more than happy to oblige.
As you can imagine, you can have lots of fun with water-butt puns.
Err… no! Not those sort of jokes, please!
Anyway, here’s the article if you want to have a read.
Over to You
So, here’s a challenge.
Think up a pun right now and share it in the comments box below.
The winner gets a price.
Haha! See what I did there?
How can you lighten up an article? With puns, of course! Here's how it's done. #puns #humour #story #storytelling #laughter #jokes Click To TweetMore About Humour
Click here to read another article that I wrote – a true story about the benefits of humour.
Now listen in as David reads it to you…
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