This story centers on a peanut company that was located in the Coastal Plain, east of Plains, Georgia. It was established in 1840 and was called the SKIMPEE Peanut Butter Company. Growing, harvesting, crushing, and blending peanuts into peanut butter was all they did. After the Civil War, they turned the operation into a company town because slavery was abolished, so now they paid their employees in company issued money called: bit coins. After a 72-hour work week (Sundays were a day of rest due to their location in the Bible Belt), Saturday night was payday. All employees received defective lids from the company canning jars as payment for their services. Because the laborers were former slaves, the law dictated that they were paid with a monetary instrument. Canning lids fit that description because they could be traded for tangible goods. Frequently they complained so the “bitch coin” label arose. However, they could only be spent at the company store for food or traded for room and board in company housing in order to keep them alive. This operation was highly profitable for the individuals who decided to pay their workforce with covers they couldn’t use and be able to purchase goods that the workers couldn’t live without. It worked like a champ. As the company grew, less product was placed in the jars to increase profits and the name “SKIMPEE” was a joke that the owners themselves laughed at…and life went on. The rich got richer and the poor got fatter living on a product that used the fats extracted from deceased employees. That’s right! The body fats of the dead were pureed and mixed in with the peanut butter blend to form peanut blubber, a delightful fusion of nuts and an ester of fatty acids. Once the product is unpackaged, there is a mad dash to collect all the lids because of its value at the company store. The uncovered peanut blubber stays in the employees’ homes and becomes an excellent house fly catcher.
Torked Truth 