Wasp Machine

[squirmelia]

In Oxford, there are cash machines with a sign next to them saying "Wasps destroyed. Call this number."

Adam and I wondered if there has recently been a problem in Oxford with wasps flying out of cash machines. You insert your card, type in your pin, and instead of 10 pounds, you get 10 wasps. Or bees, or butterflies, or flying ants, depending on what you press.

Comments

[eatsoylentgreen.livejournal.com]

that would certainly discourage ME from using a fake cash card.

[nickmurdoch.livejournal.com]

That's the sort of thing that'd give me nightmares!

[cementimental.livejournal.com]

"Wasps" is the funniest word I know.

[psych0naut.livejournal.com]

I think you've got it wrong. If the sign next to the machine says "wasps destroyed", then the machine must be a wasp-destroying machine. You're not supposed to insert your bank card; you're supposed to insert wasps. And the machine then destroys them.

[messy-hair-girl.livejournal.com]

I saw lots of those signs last time I was in the UK, and was wondering why the British weren't capable of wielding their own can of Raid.

[solitarywalker.livejournal.com]

or 10 pounds of wasps

[tlrmx.org (from livejournal.com)]

It's an error message. "Wasps destroyed. Call this number" => "This machine runs on wasps, but they have been destroyed. Call this number for an engineer, who will replenish the supply of wasps enabling the machine to function normally".

You're probably just unfamiliar with the normal operation of the machine. Like one of those SF stories where long distance sublight travellers revert to savagery en route and imagine the announcements from the ship computer to be utterances from God. To you the machine's function is the supply of "cash". But it is intended as an insect mediated teleporter, the cash function is residual in the absence of sufficient wasps to control the teleporter.