Another equally hilarious joke was to sit across the hall way from a
soda machine that had the inexplicable option of selecting a Ruby Red
Squirt. Not many people willingly choose that flavor so we would
strike the selection button a a downwards and sideways direction that
would make it stick and auto select that beverage as soon as a pair
of quarters dropped. That was pretty funny to watch people put in
their money and before they could make their selection a unwelcome
Ruby Red Squirt would drop and ruin their beverage buying experience.
 |
| Costs the same as the one you wanted with none of the "you wanted". |
What would add to the joke was that sometimes we would put in a
nickle to prime the machine. What would happen then was a person
would put in their fifty cents and then get their unbidden
refreshment and start to complain only to notice that a nickles worth
of change just clattered into the return tray. Almost always they
would turn to some one either a companion or a passer by and say this
stupid machine just automatically gave me a Ruby Red Squirt but it
only cost me forty five cents. The ten percent discount was all it
took to turn their perceived bad luck into a noteworthy windfall. A
couple of time someone would have a dramatically aggressive reaction
and slap or shake the machine which always made us laugh and draw
attention. One time a kid who was wound a little too tightly asked if
we had set him up clearly ready to hand out some head smacks if we
had. My friend Cole threw him off the trail by saying he was just
laughing because that damn machine just did the exact same thing to
him. That made us brothers in soda fiat oppression and made sure we
didn't get any unnecessary pummeling. I don't know when or why we
stopped doing this prank but I guess it was whenever they
discontinued Ruby Red Squirt and no other compulsory soda made anyone
quite so mad.
