I ask the ginger: why do I pun when I hate puns?

Entry #1

This ginger root is like Popeye. Or like a tennis player with a big arm, one bigger than the other. Jimmy Conners was like that when I grew up. Like a crab with one arm bigger than the other… Neither the crab nor Jimmy Conners was mutant, however. I think things don’t care how they look when they grow underground. Nobody can see it. But then why do potatoes have eyes? This thing has lines on it. What are they for? Like tree rings to show how old it is, how many seasons it has been through? The ginger root is like an old soul. But it smells so fresh. 

Entry #2

I want to keep this in my pocket like a utility knife. It looks as if it should have lots of capabilities, perhaps a bottle opener, a corkscrew, and a Phillips-head screwdriver. Or maybe it would grow that way if I lived long enough to see it ripen. Right now it’s still forming, as if it’s in some kind of utility-knife womb and I’m looking at it through a sonogram. Its branches are a bit monochromatic and small, like a baby’s arms and legs in utero. Maybe I associate it with an unborn child because it was growing in the earth as if the earth were a womb. We all come from the earth; perhaps that’s why our culture refers to “Mother Earth.” Maybe that’s why my spice jar refers to “ground ginger.” Just kidding. That’s two puns in as many days. Am I punchy? Should I be embarassed about these little attempts at humor? Are they my inner writer calling me, telling me that my writing is too serious, and I need to lighten up? The puns kind of surface in my writing, and I don’t know what to do with them.