In the beginning ...

 

In the beginning, when God created the universe ... (Genesis 1:1 onwards).

Then God created Adam and gave him the task to name all the animals, birds and creatures of the sea. Adam was enthusiastic at first and as the animals passed by he said in monosyllables "Ant, bee, cat, dog, cow, pig ..." and so on.

In time, he became more adventurous and used longer words, "giraffe, horse, llama, lion, tiger, panther, zebra ..." and so on.

But there were many animals and birds, not to mention all the fishes in the sea, still to be named. So Adam grew tired and he could hardly keep his eyes open. When the next animal walked by him he said, "Hippopotamus amphibius or Choeropsis liberiensis or Hexaprotodon liberiensis depending on the size of the animal."

At which point God hit Adam on the head with a dead bat and said "Don't be too clever, lad!"

And that's how we got the word Hippopotamus.

Anyway, this went on for a while and Adam grew tired and forlorn, whatever forlorn means. So he asked God, "I wish I had some company other than these dumb animals!"

God scratched His beard and asked, "What do you want?"

Adam replied, "I wish I had another person like me ... but not totally like me if you understand what I mean. I like her to be beautiful. I want her to love me and to be faithful and loyal to me. To be always with me. To be able to cook and clean when things get a little untidy; but not when sports is on TV. And generally to be the best companion and friend any one in the world would wish for. "

"Good Lord!" said God mentioning Himself, "you're not asking for much are you? To have a wife like that would cost an arm and a leg!"

Adam hesitated and then replied, "All right ... what do I get for a rib?"

So God was pleased and told all His creations to go forth and multiply. 

A while later, (not sure how long), God came back to check, and sure enough, every one had had a good time and there were plenty of baby everything everywhere. Baby people, baby animals, baby fish, birds and so on. And God was pleased that they had learnt their multiplication tables.  

However, He noticed that there were only two snakes. So He asked them, "Did you not have a good time? Why did you not multiply as I said?"

 

They replied: "We are adders. We need logs to multiply!"

[Mathematical joke. Logs means logarithms.] E.G. log₂ 64 = 6