Michael Collins - Lolly Factory

 There are no lollies in the Lolly Factory. There used to be! When the factory actually produced real lollies. Varieties that would turn the head of the sweetest tooth. All shapes and sizes, all flavours, and all colours. It was shut down, because, management in their blinkered, philistine, misogynist way refused to see reason. You see, they manufactured a product by the name of Ladies’ Allsorts. And, it was a big seller. The varieties of lollies was exquisite…’delicious’ would be an understatement. So popular was this item that it outsold 5:1 the companion product, aptly named Gentlemen’s Allsorts.

Understandably, the (so called) gentlemen did not like this state of affairs one little bit. And that included many of the employees at the Lolly Factory…not only the customers. This was surprising as the Lolly Factory was making money hand over fist. Everyone was a winner…Or so one might imagine. But…foul acts were afoot. For some, making money was not enough. Not nearly enough! Something had to be done. It was just not good enough that the Ladies’ Allsorts out-stripped in sales the Gentlemen’s Allsorts. So a plan was hatched. The small, but vocal, minority spent many hours on their nefarious ‘labour of love’. Certain irony there. Behind the scenes they laboured. With great care and secrecy they reached out to their customer base. They infiltrated the ranks of the stock holders. And pretty soon, at an annual General Meeting, the current Board of Directors was voted out…

A new policy was introduced, effective forthwith. The Ladies’ Allsorts would continue as before…or almost. In place of the multi-coloured lollies that were traditional, every lolly was to be made ‘pink’. They were cunning! Or so they thought.

Two things happened.

1) The women simply stopped buying the Ladies Allsorts. Simple as that. And,

2) The men, in overwhelming solidarity, did the same.

Yes, the Lolly Factory was no more. It went broke.

It is now a block of flats, with several devoted to the making of illicit drugs. So the police report.