The Boston Molasses Disaster (also known as the Great Molasses Flood or The Great Boston Molasses Tragedy) occurred on January 15, 1919, in the North End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. A large molasses (treacle) tank burst and a wave of molasses ran through the streets at an estimated 35 MPH (60 km/h), killing twenty-one and injuring 150 others. The event has entered local folklore, and residents claim that the area still sometimes smells of molasses.
Nonsense!
In a recently discovered hand colored lithograph, it can clearly be seen that the "The Great Molasses Flood" was actually in fact "The Great Easy Cheese Flood". The lithograph was found in little known government repository (thanks to the Freedom of Information act) where it had been hidden from public view for nearly eighty seven years. This is only part of a much larger conspiracy between the government and the big convienence food industry to deceive the American consumer.
While the dates mentioned above for the "Great Molasses Flood" seem to be correct, the details of the "Easy Cheese Flood" are quite different and really believed to be as follows...
It is beleived that the accident was the result of the manufacturer's first attempt to package easy cheese in a gas pressurized "on demand" dispensing canister.
Company engineers had developed a method of packing and pressurizing in which a mixture of super heated gasoline, hydrogen and methane were combined to be used as the dispensing propellant. Due to technological limitations at the time in the field of miniturization, it was decided that the only pratical way to fill the canisters of easy cheese was to do all of them at once. While the engineer's technology and methods were promising, the company's bean counters threw an unexpected wrench in the works.
Unknown to the project engineers was a cost cutting effort which had been orchestrated by a sniveling, greasy, visor wearing, insignificant little worm of a man. Mr. J. Joshia Horowitz. It seems that in a effort to save a few dollars Mr. Horowitz demanded that the company's purchasing agents buy grade #2 lead seal material for use on the canister bases. The engineers had oringinally specified grade #10. A later engineering change to grade #8 was implemented because of troubles with tooling for grade #10 sealing material.
Why grade #2 you might ask, well because grade #8 was only available at the time at a cost of $0.011 per linear foot. Grade #2 on the other hand was possesed in large surplus quantities by the Federal government following the civil war and in an effort to rid themselves of the (quickly becoming considered toxic) material they offered it up in huge public auctions at the cost of $0.000000000001 per linear foot.
So, much to the engineers amazement, the bottoms blew out of the one-million easy cheese cans that were in production on that otherwise quiet Wednesday morning.
The easy cheese exploded through the sleepy North Boston neigborhood with a rate that even exceeded the speed of the pyroclastic flow at Pompei in 79 A.D. Recent research indicates that speeds may have reached in excess of 100 MPH. It is beleived that 1000's may have perished in the event. Many victims were found as if frozen in time. Some standings, running, blown over laying on their backs. The actual count may never be known as the local coroners were paid large sums of money and promised all the cheese they could eat to falsify the body count.
One piece of evidence which perhaps confirms the tragedy is the odd, eight pounds on average of weight over the national average, that people in the effected neighborhood seem to experience. Also considered odd is that the primary mode of transportation chosen by this same group of people is the Honda CB750 K8.
I hope this has brought some clarity to an otherwise confusing and often misunderstood event.
Best Regards,
DiscoEd
