— a semi-regular humor column. This time from Bill Thompson —
I caught the early ferry to Anacortes today, an increasingly rare event for me, so, killing some time doing The Seattle Times crosswords seemed reasonable. All I needed was four quarters for the newspaper dispenser. I put a one dollar bill in the change maker, which usually returns four quarters in just a matter of seconds. Not this time. This time it was nickels. One every three seconds. Ka ching…ka ching…ka ching…. I finally gathered up the 20 nickels, and started dropping them in the newspaper slot, which is about thigh high, so you’ve got to bend over to do this (unfortunately, my back was a bit out of whack).
This is where it got silly I dropped a nickel on the ground. Fortunately, nobody was around to watch my next move. The nickel traveled in a perfect arc, about 8 ft. in diameter, so I put my hand right where the circle should be complete, and the nickel rolled right into my hand, pretty cool. Back to feeding the slot. At about #18, I dropped another nickel, dang if it didn’t also have a perfect arc. I put my hand precisely where I thought the nickel would return to, and it did. Finally, with all nickels in, I pulled the handle. Nope, can’t get a paper. I thought, did I miscount? I didn’t think so, but I put in another nickel anyway. Still, no paper. Twenty one nickels.
I tracked down a ferry employee and explained the matter. She asked, “Was It the Seattle Times?” I said yes. She said, “That device is fond of taking peoples money, but never offering anything in return.” I suggested she write a note that says ‘out of service’ and I would put it on the demented device. She then proceeded to write a note, with sorta small letters, put some tape on it, and handed it to me. It read, “This device is fond of taking peoples money but never offering anything in return.” I posted it on a diagonal so it would be an eye-catcher. The first person that came along was an old gent. He bent over, read the message, stood up, took his glasses off, bent over and read it again. I think he thought it was a prank. I couldn’t watch any longer when someone came up and put a five dollar bill in the change maker. He probably got all his 100 nickels by the time we got to Lopez.
Somewhere out there, someone has my 21 nickels. I was told that the new food vendors are also in charge of the newspapers and change makers. At this rate, the Coast Guard should start training for passenger mutinees.
At least it was a great sunrise.
