Black Plums. Innocent Health Product or Deadly Performance Enhancer?

In the most shocking fruit related expose since this blog pointed out that figs weren't vegan (a fact known to nobody except everyone likely to care) comes the news that black plums aids in skin care and blood clotting.  This pearl of wisdom was dropped into my glass of vinegar courtesy of the diligent staff at my employer's HK office.

Say what you like about the management of our HK office (and I frequently do) it cannot be denied that they are looking out for their employees.  Whether graciously permitting them to leave the office when a typhoon hits or making sure that their blood is appropriately clotted courtesy of a black plum drive, surely employer concern cannot get any greater than this.

Before dawn the shock troops were out; hundreds of masked, camouflage clad commandos swooping on orchards all over China seizing the prized black plums and carrying them off in triumph to Hong Kong.  Because let's make no mistake, our office isn't just encouraging people to eat black plums.  Every available space in our HK corporate headquarters is stuffed to bursting with the damn things.  A laudatory verse to them has been inserted into the company song (and no we don't have a company song, we're Chinese not Japanese) and next years bonus payments are being tied  to "acceptable" levels of black plum consumption.  Acceptable being defined as "eating the damn things every waking moment". 

A blood test is taken on arrival at work and anyone who displays any liquid in their blood at all is taken to the black plum re-education room and "encouraged" to enjoy a second breakfast consisting largely of, you guessed it, black plums.  Sure there have been angry mutterings.  Proponents of the consumption of other types of plum have called us racist.  Complaints have been made of the persistent odour of putrefying fruit coming from our offices (so far we're successfully blaming the noodle bar next door) but we shall not be deterred.

Did you know that the average life expectancy of employees in our HK office is 174 years?  That our sixty five year old secretaries beat up cage fighters for fun and when the ground started subsiding after the last typhoon the facilities team went down into the basement and physically held the building up?  In fact they're still there sustained by a conveyor belt of black plum based foodstuffs provided by our admiring catering staff.

Black plums are the secret to our standout performance.  Thanks to their blood clotting properties our partners are the only ones in HK who can sharpen their blood to a point and use it as a weapon if negotiations get tense.  And believe me when you've got an entire office of high achievers desperately "chasing the plum" as the saying goes things are likely to get tense.  Very, very tense.

Still its better than the bad old days when our people were so anaemic that opening their eyes caused them to faint (which was somewhat counter productive) and their blood was so thin that it trickled out the pores in their skin.  That's all behind us now.  No longer are our offices referred to as "The Crimson Fountain".  Now we are the Black Plum Big Dogs and all fear our wrath.