You have been spared this mini-rant long enough. There is a machine behind the check out in our local supermarket that does THE EXACT OPPOSITE of what it says it does. “Change Your Change Into Cash” it says, as if it takes something that isn’t cash and turns it into cash. What it actually does is take something that is cash – Coins – and turns them into something that isn’t cash – A Voucher. Fair enough, just a wrong thing that only a pedant would care about; but no, somehow all my rage at all this, the volunteer pathetic lab rat frustration at being in this place doing this thing, when I should be doing other elsewhere, finds its outlet in my rage against this machine and it’s stupid, stupid claim. “TURN YOUR CHANGE INTO CASH?” I scream (internally) “CHANGE INTO cash? CHANGE IS COINS, COINS ARE CASH, IT’S BLOODY CASH ALREADY, CHANGE IS CASH!, you turn coins – WHICH ARE CASH – into vouchers WHICH ARE NOT CASH!!“. “What do you take me for” I add “a moron?” and that, of course, is the crushing end to it all, because the answer is “yes, we do. Look at you”.

“Could I physically put that thing through that window?” I wonder “Destroy that machine, liberate myself, and get myself barred from this gravitational hell hole all in one go?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because it weighs a ton, it’s full of cash.”