Natural Units Puns

The punanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of Pun-merica, When in the Course of human pun-ventures, it becomes necessary for one people to loosen the comical bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the wits of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Yaws of Pun-Nature and of Nature's Pun entitle them, a decent respect to the punchlines of mankind requires that they should declare the pun-riddled causes which propel them to the separation.

We hold these puns to be self-evident, that all wordplay is created equal, that they are endowed by their Pun-ator with certain un-pun-able Rights, among these are Life, Linguistic-erty and the pursuit of Puntasticness.--That to secure these rights, Pun-ernments are playfully instituted among Puns, deriving their just laughter from the consent of the amused, --That whenever any Form of Pun-ernment becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Write of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to pull out new Wordmanship, laying its fun-dation on such punster principles and organizing its powers in such playful form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Laugh-ety and Happiness. Prun-dence, indeed, will dictate that Pun-ernments long established should not be changed for pun-light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while pun-evils are sufferable, than to set-write themselves by abolishing the language forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long laugh-track of abuses and usurp-puns, pursuing invariably the same Pun-jectives evince a design to reduce them under absolute Pun-potism, it is their right, it is their pun-ty, to chuckle off such Word-rule, and to provide new Punderful Guards for their pun-ture posterity.--Such has been the pun-ient sufferance of these Pun-olonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Punnery. The history of the present Pun-King of Great Pun-Ain is a history of repeated punchlines and usurp-puns, all having in jest the establishment of an absolute Pun-ranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be fun-bmitted to a candid whirl of wordplay.

Around 1910, a French chef did a series of reckless experiments with boiled egg whites and other items, thus accidentally creating a new condiment. He named it after his hometown, and so the new confection became known as mayonnaise.

One of the first fans of the new confection was Mexico’s ambassador to France, who wrote home about this marvelous new product, and so an enormous demand for mayonnaise developed across Mexico. But the demand could not be met; the chef refused to share the recipe with anyone, and the logistics of keeping the product cold while in transit from France to any part of Mexico proved very difficult.

An especially ambitious entrepreneur named Julio Gomez offered a solution: instead of sailing from France directly to Mexico, through the warm waters where the unrefrigerated mayonnaise would likely spoil, it could be shipped from France to the northern United States, a voyage that would be much colder and therefore preserve the mayonnaise much better. Once unloaded in New York, it would only need a few days to reach Mexico by train, and so Gomez arranged for special refrigerated rail cars to transport it.

The financial and logistical difficulties of this shipping method were daunting, but Gomez was more than equal to the task. He had hoped to begin the shipping in late 1911 to take advantage of the cold weather, but what with one thing and another he was forced to delay until the following spring.

But April in the North Atlantic is still cold enough, and so Gomez went ahead with his plan. He secured his supply of mayonnaise in Paris, and got it to Liverpool in record time. From there he managed to get it into the cargo of a passenger liner that was leaving for New York that very day, and arranged for the rail cars to meet the shipment in New York. Word of this development reached Mexico, where it was received with great joy and anticipation.

Much to Gomez’s misfortune, the ship in question was none other than the Titanic. The importation scheme was a total loss, and no further attempt to import mayonnaise to Mexico was made for decades after.

Due to the rushed and chaotic nature of Gomez’s operation, it took some weeks to confirm that his cargo of mayonnaise had been on the Titanic. Once the news was confirmed, Mexico’s hopes were crushed and there was a period of low-key national mourning.

The tragic loss of the Titanic shocked and saddened people all over the world. Mass funerals for the dead passengers were held in New York, L