Thursday 3 April 2014

C – Chocolatier

Being a sugar-addicted hyperactive child at heart, I still crave chocolaty treats like a seven-year old diabetic.  I often give into those urges, and can often be seen munching down a Wispa Gold in the same way that a starving man would wolf down his first steak in over ten years. As such, my dream job is to create and be around chocolate all day, sort of like a fat Willy Wonka whose sugar levels are so high that his feet are slowly rotting off.

Due to this obsession, I decided to follow my dream and become a chocolatier.  I couldn’t open my own chocolate factory, so I started to make my own in the basement.  The main problem was, I didn’t actually know how to create my own chocolate.  I tried throwing together some sugar and cocoa beans (or the closest equivalent I had; instant coffee granules) in the oven, but I just got a hot, soggy mess.  Obviously, I didn’t have the technical nous to create my own, so I would have to employ a workforce to do the tough stuff such as creating the recipes, making the chocolate, wrapping it up, and selling it for a tidy profit.  In other words, I would have to rely on others to do everything for me, which is essentially my life’s motto.  I put out an advert in the local paper:

“Want to work in my basement for no wages in order to create unproven chocolate products?  Apply here today!”

There was a surprising lack of applicants.  My workforce only grew by one individual, a rat which had taken up residence in my basement. He didn’t know a great deal about chocolate making, but knew an awful lot about biting people.  So I resolved to go and catch my own workers.

Judging by Roald Dahl’s famous book (James And The Giant Peach), I’d need a whole legion of little people in order to create my confectionary utopia.  Willy Wonka enslaved a whole race of midgets in to fulfil his chocolately destiny.  I guessed that I would have to do the same.

My favourite Roald Dahl book, The Twits

Finding midgets is quite difficult if you don’t know where to look.  Fortunately, there was a travelling freak show in town, so I visited and started to catch them in a burlap sack.  Some of the other freaks were a little confused and asked what I was doing, so I told them about needing some workers for my chocolate factory.  The freaks were rather keen on the idea, perhaps because the freak show business is a tad demeaning, and agreed to come and work for me instead.

My workforce was now comprised of two dwarves, a giant, a bearded lady, and a straight man who enjoys shopping for shoes.  I showed them my basement and set them to work.

After several painstaking weeks (none of the freaks knew how to make chocolate either), we eventually produced a bar of chocolate.  As it laid there on the workbench, we glanced at each other in silence, wondering who was brave enough to take the first bite.  Eventually, I took the plunge and bit off a small square.  It tasted like chocolate and it didn’t immediately kill me.  It was good!  Full production could now begin.

As my minions churned out bar after bar of delicious brown delights, I began to dream bigger.  Taking inspiration from that fateful Roald Dahl story that became my initial inspiration (The BFG), I began to imagine grander candy projects that we could manufacture.  What about edible window glass?  Purple Kit Kats? Popping candy that splits the atom?  I set my team the task of working on these dream products in the hopes of becoming the most famous and radical confectioner ever!

Unfortunately, we were due a health inspection, and the inspector wasn’t particularly impressed by our range of nuclear liquorice.  He was even less enthralled by the rat, who we let nibble a piece of each chocolate bar to ensure it was edible.  I thought our rodent solution to quality control was an elegant solution, but the inspector disagreed and promptly shut us down.  This has left me with a lot of waste product, so if anyone wants some free tumour-inducing liquorice, just let me know.

16 comments:

  1. Ah! There's another post already! I didn't even get a chance to read the last one. I'm not sure if A-Z is more overwhelming for the participants or for regular readers.
    That first bar of chocolate, if made by circus people, had to at least induce hallucinations. And sugar mixed with coffee grounds still can't taste as bad as baking chocolate. Whoever invented that trickery ought to be forced to eat nothing but baking chocolate for the rest of his/her life. I think baking chocolate is what's used in Guantanamo Bay instead of water boarding.

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    1. I don't think baking chocolate should even be classed as chocolate at all. It's more the kind of thing that your parents would feed you to stop you from swearing.

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  2. I couldn't help but wonder if you got the coffee beans from yesterday's job? If so, I hope you rinsed them off first.

    Elsie
    AJ's wHooligan in the A-Z Challenge

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    1. The health inspector did say the chocolate smelled a bit weird. It was the kind of smell that could only be removed with bleach and a toilet brush.

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  3. Well, I've been looking for an excuse to get out of work, so how about you send a box of that liquorice to my neck of the woods?

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    1. When you grow an extra arm, I imagine you'll be expected to do extra work.

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  4. I'm not really interested in the chocolate, but could please box up the bearded lady and send her over?

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    1. Done. i hope she tickles your fancy (and your chin).

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  5. I would work in your chocolate factory. I'll also take your tumour inducing candies. I don't think I'll eat them myself, but it couldn't hurt to have something that could make someone die of natural causes. I missed out on the chance to be a chocolatier. They decided I was too unhealthy.

    To work with chocolate.

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    1. How healthy do you have to be to work with chocolate? That's more ridiculous than anything I've ever posted.

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  6. Mmm. Chocolate. I'm visiting from the A to Z Challenge. Have a wonderful month!! - www.margokelly.blogspot.com -

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  7. Sorry to hear you got closed down. Using animals in an industrial environment got a bad press after all those Beagles we found smoking behind the bike sheds and said the boss forced then to do it. . . . The final straw was the small Monkey wearing lipstick and fish net stockings shouting HELLO SAILOR at a passing health inspection somewhere distracting him from his work leading to an embarrassing divorce and his picture on the front of the News of the World and the classic headline . . . . Monkey Business.

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    1. The animal labour market has never recovered since the PG Tips chimps managed to form a union.

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  8. I'm afraid I don't find myself motivated to relieve you of the nuclear liquorice... sorry!

    An A to Z Challenge Participant

    http://www.fantasyblog.ciaraballintyne.com

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    1. I'll send you some anyway, just to say thanks for stopping by.

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