Puntificating

Well well well, welcome weary web wanderers to a Wacky Wordy Wednesday. (Yeah, I know I slipped “to a” in there and they don’t start with W, but cut me just a little bit of slack for once, ok? Gosh.) Since I still have a bunch of Spanish flying around in my head, I figured I’d try to stretch the topic of our Mexican vacation out to one more post.

On Monday’s early-morning post, I wrote about my uncanny ability to make puns regardless of where I’m geographically located. I know you’re probably all still very impressed by that skill, so I want to make sure you’re sitting down for what I’m about to reveal. Ready? I also have the impressive power to make puns that are not bound by the barrier of of the English language. Are you ok? Do I need to have CTU upload the schematics of the nearest former military hospital to my PDA? Whew, that was a close one.

Since puns are a key component of the life cocktail that makes up Peter, this may not surprise too many of you. Back in high school, Dusty and I would make puns in Spanish all the time. My favorite of his was when the teacher asked, “Que mas?” meaning “What else?” Dusty responded, “Si, quemo,” which means, “Yes, I burn” since her question could’ve been misinterpreted that way. I don’t know if I came even remotely close to explaining that one, but I know it was very funny at the time. You'll have to trust me on this.

Another time, I was shooting baskets by myself in front of my parents' house. In my head, I thought, "Come on, Peter. Do it. Hazlo. Like the capital or Norway." I laughed to and at myself, causing me to miss the shot I was so focused on. Oh vell. Sudden translations with references to Scandinavia have been known to ruin many a jumpshot.

Anyway, puns of this and a different nature abounded on our trip. On our last full day in Mexico, my lovely wife and I were drinking Sol brand beer and swimming in the condo complex's pool. She reached over and accidentally grabbed my can instead of hers. "Ah!" I said in a fake scream, "You stole my Sol!" Yes, this is how I've amused myself for many years now.

So we've got English and Spanish covered. In Akumal, Mexico and the surrounding areas though, a lot of places are named in the Mayan language. Por ejemplo, there's a beautiful lagoon area near where we stayed called Yal Ku. Naturally, that turned into "Yal Ku wit dat?" every single time we saw a sign. Similarly, we frequently passed a place called Yul Caanal, as in "Yul Caanal kiss my ass!" I said it so many times that when I didn't one time, my wife just shook her head. "You're thinking it, aren't you?" she asked. Of course I was!

Another place we visited in Akumal was called Aktun Chen. It was a fascinating place with all of these underground caves and rivers, complete with bats, stalagmites, and stalactites. There was also a real life ROUS from "The Princess Bride," which would've been scary if it weren't so frickin' cool. (For those of you out of the loop, that stands for Rodent Of Unusual Size, and the Dread Pirate Wesley personally didn't think they existed in the Fire Swamp.) For some reason, while it was written "Aktun Chen" almost everywhere, one sign visible while driving north on the main road had it listed as "AK TUNCHEN." The first time we saw that sign, I reached over and poked my wife's leg with my non-driving hand. She looked over at me, and knew after only a fraction of a second that I had been "tunching" her because her initials are "A.K." As luck would have it, we passed that sign quite a few more times and the joke never ever got old.

Puns sure are so much fun, aren't they? Aren't they? Well, I enjoy them quite a bit, even though I know that some people think that puns have to be bad by definition. I'm almost tempted to learn new languages just to help me expand my pun territory. Right now I'm stuck with the extremely limited vocabulary I have in other tongues to make funnies. For example, I rubbed my left eye after the first leg of our plane ride home and said, "Eye's dry, and no I'm not counting in German." Ba-dum ching! It makes me want to barbecue with people who speak Hebrew just so I can say it was "hot coal beseder" and bring the house down.

Alas, I'm stuck with languages I actually know at this point (and the occasional road sign). Gentle readers, I imagine some of you are multi-lingual. Got anything for me here? Sacky Kevin, bust out some German. BKS, I know you have some French or German puns dying to get out. Candice, enlighten us with some Russian. Dusty, did you bring some Cantonese to share with the class? Brother Kevin, got any sign language puns? Lt. Worf, how about something in Klingon?

Have a great day, my friends. Yul Caanal meet me back here tomorrow; Yal Ku wit dat?