Whether you’ve read the books or seen the movies, there isn’t a single person alive who doesn’t wish they could visit Willy Wonka’s fantastical chocolate factory in real life. But what if you could visit the next best thing?
We recently took a tour of a meat processing plant in Arkansas, and the sheer amount of children employed here will make you feel like you’re strolling along the chocolate river with all the Oompa Loompas. They say a little bit of magic goes into every piece of hardwood smoked bacon, and these kids are making it happen, with fingers small enough to unclog the meat grinders.
Now before anyone freaks out, the CEO (a colorful character I might add) assured me that these children are here of their own volition and not purchased from a local orphanage, despite what some investigative journalists claim. He’s just a billionaire recluse who keeps a tight lid on his food factory with little to no oversight. Sound familiar?
Look at them in their little Tyvek suits! It’s just like the scene where they’re zapping the candy bar into the TV, except with more pig entrails. The real highlight is to see them sing and dance, especially after each workplace accident. It’s surprisingly effective. Nothing will distract you from watching someone get impaled on a meat hook like several eight-year-olds hitting the griddy. Hats off to the boss man for cultivating such a whimsical killing floor.
When you think about it, a workforce of vulnerable, impressionable children is the most efficient way to operate a windowless warehouse of animal carcasses. Do you think a grown adult would thrive in this environment? They’d probably just try to eat everything in sight and get gout and end up bloated Violet Beauregarde. Not only that but employing a small army of kids slashes operating costs in half when the CEO can just pay them in whatever leftover meat scraps don’t make it to the packaging department.
When you think about it, the enigmatic proprietor of this factory slaughterhouse is doing these kids a favor. Like how Willy Wonka rescued the Oompa-Loompas from the vicious predators that stalked Oompaland, these kiddos are safe from our nation’s dangerous public schools, movie theaters, and playgrounds.
Though if you too get to take the grand tour, don’t let the kids trick you into drinking out of the “river”. It wasn’t chocolate like they said.