Farmer John Pork Packing Plant

This depiction to the contrary, Farmer John's is not an aeronautics academy catering to pigs. You're excused for coming to that conclusion. The magnificent pig in his flying machine bespeaks freedom and exhilaration and joy. And yet Farmer John's is, in fact, an institution that offers none of those precious commodities.

For Farmer John's is a slaughterhouse the size of a city block.

Its exterior is covered in a fanciful mural that portrays not the Horrors of the Mallet, nor the Terrors of the Blade, but instead, well, pigs flying airplanes, pigs strolling with Li'l Abner's Daisy Mae, and pigs perching on fences.

The—we hesitate to say it—contradiction is difficult to ignore.






But then we remember that, while Farmer John's might have a California zip code, its true address is Main Street, Suicidefood City. And in that storied municipality, a slaughterhouse is really just... a pig playground. (But do keep clear, won't you?)












Now the variously zooming and fence-climbing pigs make perfect sense.

Or, no, not sense, really, but they fit right in.

The "playground" is where they can fulfill their profoundest destinies. They will play—how they will play—until they have played themselves all the way into the afterworld, where they slumber eternally, serene in the knowledge that they gave their lives for a good cause some guy named Farmer John.

(Thanks to Drs. Elinor and Bea for the referral. Find the Creative Commons license that applies to the first and third photos, by hexodus, here, and see the movie from which the second image was taken.)