I don’t get the Pun of the Day. Either the answer is too simple or it’s too hard or it’s too corny, or . . . But, yet, it is still wanted.

This is my eighth year of teaching, and I’d never offered the figuring out of puns as a way to start class. (I prefer reading aloud, and the years I read “The Hunger Games” [before it became a movie] to begin my Language Arts classes were a lot of fun.) But, anyway, one night sitting in grad school class, I was struck by a thought (the conversation in class had to do with engaging ways to run a presentation): what if I started each class with some sort of joke (because I had abandoned the Write Now due to time constraints)? But then, I thought, a pun is sort of a joke and students actually need to know what puns are as a literary device, so I downloaded an app and the rest is history.

Except history started to repeat itself. Or, in this case, the app began to repeat itself. Advertised as offering a different pun for each day of the year, the Puns app really offers a pun for each day of half the year and then repeats itself. Yes, there are dozens of Web sites with tons of puns for perusal and sharing, but, the app was so simple and I really didn’t want to put that much effort into the thing, what with everything else going on.

So, on the last day before Spring Break, I said that that day’s Pun would be the last, unless I received more. I said students could place recommended puns in the gray box on the front half-hexagonal table in the room if they wanted the ritual to continue. And not only has that happened, but I’ve received lengthy emails from students full of puns, so I guess we’re good for awhile.

I still don’t get it, though.