It sounds like a joke, but...

M&M's have been in the news lately, and - despite my affection for M&M's - I haven't paid a ton of attention to that bit of news. Something about M&M spokescandies. Was the green one too sexy? Not sexy enough? Is it a lesbian?

I really don't care one way or the other about spokescandies, other than to be annoyed by all the commotion, the ginned up outrage (likely faux, as a lot of the outrage comes out of Fox) over whether M&M's have gotten too woke.

All these outrageous outrages do is whip people into an even frothier state of culture war. And keep us from focusing on things that seem to me to matter a lot more. Like Ukraine. Like our faltering healthcare system. Like the environment. Like what happens to the indoor and outdoor environment when there are no regulations, or when regulations are ignored. As in the Norfolk Southern debacle in Palestine, Ohio. As in a 2022 incident in which two workers at at M&M/Mars factory in Pennsylvania fell into a vat of chocolate.

Sure, it sounds like a joke. Or a scene out of Willie Wonka. Or like something that might almost be fun, especially for a chocolate lover like myself.

Did I mention that I love M&M's? And I miss them.

I miss them because, a year or so ago, my blood sugar nudged me into the prediabetes domain. Because my diet - at least the sugar-free part of it - is largely healthy - lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, light on the red meat - I had been ignoring how much sugar I'd been consuming.

I've always had a sweet tooth - a day without something sweet is like a day without sunshine - but that sweet tooth had shifted over the years to sweet teeth.

Towards the end of my husband's life, one of my coping mechanisms was chocolate. I figured that self-medicating with Lindt - or a bag of M&M's - was healthier than alcohol or drugs. 

But even after Jim died, I kept keeping candy around the house. And things got worse during covid. 

What's the harm in keeping a 1 lb. bag of M&M's around, if all you're snacking on is a handful here and there.

Looking back on my sugar consumption, I realized that I was having a couple of cookies with lunch. A couple of cookies with my tea. Some ice cream for dessert with dinner. And a handful of candy when I settled in for an evening of making myself nuts watching MSNBC.

So I drastically cut back on my sugar consumption. 

I don't deprive myself entirely, but I've gone from something with sugar four times a day, to something with sugar once a day. 

Anyway, I don't miss sugar. (And I sure don't miss the 20 pounds I shed along the way.)

But I do miss M&M's, which I don't keep around anymore. I've had a couple of those little snack bags (fun sized, me arse) - the ones with six or seven M&M's in them - but not a real deal that is a big bag o' M&M's.

So when I read about the guys in the M&M/Mars chocolate vat, my first thought was not that they could have drowned, but that it might have been a good way to go. 

But, of course, it would have been a terrible way to go. Choking, gasping, panicking. Just terrifying. If you're lucky, you conk your head on the way down, or you die of a heart attack.

Fortunately, the two fellows at the M&M/Mars factory didn't have to find out. They were rescued by firefighters, who cut a hole in bottom of the vat and extracted the workers. They survived, little the worse for their wear. But their story illustrates what can happen when companies ignore the rules

In this case, the factory was fined $14.5K.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited Mars Wrigley in the June accident at the Elizabethtown M&M/Mars factory, saying the workers were not authorized to work in the tanks and weren't trained on the proper safety procedures for the equipment.

Officials said two workers employed by an outside contracting firm fell into the partially filled chocolate tank while doing maintenance work. (Source: NPR)

So, if the workers weren't in over their heads in chocolate, they were in over their heads in terms of their training to safely and effectively do their job. 

Which is what so often happens when companies want to save money - in this case, by outsourcing maintenance to an outside firm. Time and again, we see that this arm's length approach to certain dirty tasks gives a company plausibility: we didn't know they were employing immigrants who weren't here legally, we didn't know they were illegally hiring children, we didn't know that they weren't training folks to do their jobs the right way.

Tsk, tsk, tsk. We didn't ignore the rules, those guys, who we trusted, were the bad guys. All we were trying to do was save money  bring in contractors to take care of these ancillary tasks that are not part of our core competency, enabling us to focus on our expertise, and where we provide unique value. Blah, di, blah.

As I said, fortunately the M&M workers were fine.

As I said, I really love M&M's.

For the record, the vat contained Dove chocolate.