Midnight Madness

A midnight prank shuts down the local manufactory.

Midnight Madness

Mark pulled the car up to the manufacturing plant. Mega-Marvels Manufacturing stood like a monument to midnight as the moon illuminated the man-made marble facade. He was here to repair the multifaceted machinery.

The manufactory stretched almost a mile in each direction; it was massive. As Mark moseyed from the underground lot to the lobby, he met a team of masked (always masked) maintenance men that led him into the midst of the plant. They led him to a locker room, and he donned in the same outfit as his minders.

Now indistinguishable from his mates, Mark joined the others as they milled around until a cart, pulled by a mule, finally materialized. His main minder guided him to the tram as the rest of the maintenance men piled in around him. He'd been in this position before and had no choice but to settle in amongst the multitude.

Many minutes later, Mark popped from the cart as the others spilled out. The mass of men surrounded him as they marched him toward the now-obvious malfunction. Some miscreant had injected several bottles of molasses into the machinery. Well, now, this was a mess indeed.

Mark mused over the malfunction, trying to decide the best method of mucking out the mess. Finally, he decided the machinery needed a major steam clean before manufacturing could begin again in this department.

Management, furious with yet another delay, met with Mark to hear his grand master plan to get that arm of the manufactory up and running once more. With no choice but to agree, the maintenance men, under his direction, fired up the boilers and flushed molasses from the machinery.

Many shifts later, Mark and the masked crew completed their messy mission. Management, ever so grateful, left Mark with a warning as he moved from the exit; "Never mention the molasses in the machinery."