Pun Palindromes
Originally Presented at the 1997
O'Henry Pun-Off World Championships
Austin, Texas
I awoke at punup. Ideas were coming at me from both directions when I noticed that they always read the same way backwards and forwards. Like:
Arafat to his English professor, agreeing to do a paper.
YASSER. ESSAY.
What did 007 say when he realized that the dominatrix would not tie him up?
EGAD! NO BONDAGE?
Eleanor, meet the impecunious relatives of Edgar Allan Poe.
EL, POE PEOPLE.
Don't turn up your nose at gratuities left by former Speaker Thomas O'Neill.
SPIT NOT ON TIPS.
At a 70's rock reunion Neil Diamond reminds Toni Tennille to tell him the truth.
LIE NOT TO NEIL.
A hooker says that doing it over lunch is tiring and that it pushes her into a higher bracket.
SEX AT NOON TAXES.
What fertility clinic salesmen do with weights at the gym to build muscles.
SPERM REPS.
Note in a X-Mas card to Princess Diana from Premier Brezhnev saying that, no, Charles is not seeing a woman named Eleanor.
DI, NO EL. — LEONID.
The painting of the South American goat with the long penis is on the wall.
GNU HUNG.
Powerful kind of after shave for strong, smelly muscular types.
TURBO BRUT.
A butch little girl holding back the water with her thumb in Holland.
DIKE KID.
Some people did not like Clinton's Attorney General. In fact they though that her father's having an erection to conceive her was a big mistake. They call it a:
RENO BONER.
Sidney has put his partner into a very bad 6 No Trump and knows it. He puts his cards down as dummy and disgustedly tries to throw the cards down hard onto the table, but misses the whole table and they scatter. Partner says:
DISMAL SLAM, SID.
A Blimpie's owner finds that most of his business is with the crew of a submarine which returns periodically. He wonders to his wife Eleanor if he should diversify.
LESSEN I SUB BUSINESS, EL?
Place in a Satanic church where prevaricators come to kneel and vent to their god.
LIAR'S RAIL.
Order to reconfigure a fountain powered by foul smelling water from a German river.
REDO! ODER!
Internal office correspondence about a company's problems with poor addition.
SOME MEMOS.
Adam, new to his wife, has asked how often and when they might have sex each week. She tells him:
SEVEN EVES.
"G.I. Jane" actress halfway imitated Marcel Marceau.
DEMI MIMED.
Politically incorrect sound made when hitting an Italian prisoner of war.
P.O.W. WOP.
Burt Lancaster's hairdo for a circus movie role.
TRAPEZE PART.
What Southeast Asian made this foot rest?
NAM OTTO, MAN.
Sarcastic toast with whispered aside to Uganda's hated and unrespected strongman Amin.
TO IDI...ot.
Response to the following comment: The "Tommy" rock opera band is coming to town.
OH, WHO?
Response to the query: Is there any "news" about the fate of the rustler awaiting hanging?
NOOSE SOON.
President Nixon to waitress Dee, canceling the order for ox steak that he wanted badly.
DEE, NIX ON OX I NEED.
Spanish handler of aging champion fighter upon seeing the champ take a slug of whiskey:
SI, TITLE BELT IT IS.
The captain of the Nautilus kept a harem. One day he knocked on the door, and in an attempt to surprise them by saying "Oh, nobody" in Latin, said this when they asked who it was:
NEMO, WOMEN.
