Last week, I sent out Hymie Koshevoy’s gentle work which concluded, “Thus there will be: … Foam on the range where the beer and the cantaloupe stay….”

Pun Mistress, Scarlett Herzele, claiming that this work seduced her away from her more appropriate academic pursuits, sent me the following.

When I tried this exercise [writing puns], I had it all typed out and saved on a diskette. A grackle flew down and let loose on my diskette, corroded it and I lost all, prompting the following:

Oh, Helldom absurd, a disk scurging bird!

Well, as it turned out, Abe, another cowboy out on the range, came in after Cactus and cleaned up the mess. He even figured out how to clean up my beshatted diskette, hence saving my immortal work. But, then, much to my dismay, my chief competitor, Claudia Day, came in disguised as a disgruntled postal worker (they had ’em in those days), took Abe by the ear and dragged him away to oblivion. He, of course, was still clutching my diskette. I have little, if anything (save a few errant punctuation marks (commas, I might add))to show for my efforts, but I will leave you with this (as proof that I care deeply about these academic divulgences):

In disguise, errant Claudia hauled Abe.