International Business Puns

Should've waited to digest before the exercise, the cramps were a bitch.

Years ago I used to use a LexisNexis database of companies that would give corporate information like name, address, and general business description. While most of them were pretty bland, there were a bunch of them with some really cheesy puns, and over a few years I built quite a collection.

Today I share with you "NEXIS IS RIDICULOUS.txt":

• Bucyrus International caters to those who mine their own business.
• It would be logical for Mr. Spock to boldly go to Vulcan International for rubber products. He might even live long and prosper -- in comfortable shoes.
• What do manufacturer Electro-Motive Diesel (EMD) and 1970s band Grand Funk Railroad have in common? They both want you to do the locomotion!
• Peter Piper can pick more than a peck of peppers or pickles from B&G Foods.
• Toray Plastics America could sing "foam, foam on the range, where the polyester and polypropylene materials are made" all day.
• Break out the Tums, because things are awfully gassy over at Air Liquide America.
• If a tree falls in a Weyerhaeuser forest, someone is there to hear it -- and he has a chainsaw.
• Although not a pushover, you can walk all over Wilsonart International.
• Here's a HEICO haiku: HEICO companies/ Providing for jet engines/ In flight or on land.
• American Italian Pasta Company (AIPC) uses its noodle in many different ways.
• The golf industry doesn't mind when Aldila gives it the shaft.
• Rat-a-tat-tat and a ringa-ding-ding. What's that? Answer: The sounds emanating from Pearl, one of the world's foremost makers of drums and other percussion and musical instruments.
• Saint-Gobain Ceramics & Plastics deals powders and crystal, but there's no need to call the cops.
• Pamida Stores Operating Company offers more small-town values than a bandwagon of Republicans on the campaign trail.
• Like a tight end, offshore drilling contractor Transocean dreams of going deep but doesn't mind eating a little mud.
• Rittal me this, Batman!
• Utility Trailer Manufacturing is spreading its own brand of reefer madness.
• Who is the Fresh Prince of Sullair?
• If GrafTech International were a bard, it could wax poetic in an ode to the electrode.
• When it comes to adhesives and vibration control products, LORD knows.
• You might say that Deere & Company enjoys its customers going to seed.
• Pfizer pfabricates pfarmaceuticals pfor quite a pfew inpfirmities.
• Stripping is OK at Spraylat.
• Don't think Seton is

For all of my life, my brain has played a soundtrack. At all times, in all places, I hear music going through my head, from the moment I awaken in the morning until I go to sleep at night. I can only shut it off by listening to other music, watching a movie, etc. but it soon starts up again once the outside source of stimulus is removed.

Yesterday I was travelling. When I visited the restroom prior to boarding my flight, the the music in my head suddenly switched tracks from "I've Been Everywhere Man" (that got really old after the first hour. Oy!) to "Africa" by Toto. "That's odd", I thought to myself, "the music in my head usually doesn't switch tracks unless something has changed around me." I finished my business, cleaned up, stood up, and turned around to flush.

Then I saw it. There, emblazoned on the porcelain, was the word "TOTO". The manufacturer of the toilet. "Nice job, brain, funny, hah-hah," I thought to myself.

The song in my head came to an abrupt halt. Silence, for just one moment. Blessed silence. Rare for me. Then I realized. My brain was giving me time to digest the previous joke. Waiting for me to think I'd arrived at the punch line. Pausing for a beat before it delivered the next one. "Africa" started over again, telling me exactly why the DJ deciding songs in my head had picked this exact moment, this exquisite situation, this exact set of circumstances to deliver the internal Dad Joke of the year:

"Doodoo doo-doo doodoo do dooooooooo...."

So I am going on my first international business trip and it is to Switzerland. I receive a text from gramps out of the blue, "I heard you are going to learn how to yodel. Say in a high pitch voice 'a little old lady who!'"

me: Facepalm. "Love you too Grandpa"