An epic quest

I was given a quest yesterday, from my brother, he needed some rubber soles affixed to one of his pairs of shoes in time for a wedding the next day. There's a shopping center literally 3 minutes walk from my house, though the shoe repair guy is on the other side so it takes 10 minutes to reach him. This in itself was not a problem, grab the shoes put them in a bag, wonder over there and hand them over then come back later to collect them easy as pie really.

The difficulty came in the mission of my own devising, I need to update my passport you see, since I've changed my name since the last time it was renewed and so I wondered over to take a new picture. I thought I'd use one of those fancy booths which do it all automatically, there's one on the near side of the shopping centre. So I pop into the booth and lo and behold its £5 for a set of passport photos, no problem I think as I go to get my money out.

But then things get difficult as it required £5 in change, you see they don't have a place where you can insert notes. £5 is an absurd amount of change to expect people to just have on them and, indeed, I found myself short for the machine. Nevertheless I sought to continue and collect my brothers shoes, upon paying for them (and yes I payed for them, a considerate brother might have left me cash to do his errands, however my brother took the opportunity to borrow a tenner off me before leaving for the day) I acquired the necessary change to work the machine and everyone lived happily every after...

Or so you would think, but no my epic tale is not yet complete! Upon returning the the machine I inserted my hard-earned coins and it sputtered into life, the luminescent screen enquiring whether I desired passport photos or just photos for fun. Selecting passport photos without even taking a second to reconsider obviously caught the computer by surprise as it all went downhill from there.

A feminine, yet mechanical, voice informed me to center my head into a circle that had appeared on screen with my eyes matched up to a dotted line that gave the odd impression that someone was intending to slice the top of your head off along it. Then once I was ready, after ensuring my hair looks fabulous and, of course, removing my glasses I prepared to press the "take picture button" on the lower screen.

Tragically my preparation was for naught, despite the electronic nagging from the computers voice, the take picture button was no-where to be seen. In its place was the unwelcoming sight of the "select photo type" screen, staring back at me with incredible contempt! I tried pressing buttons but they did nothing, the screen mockingly said I had another £1 to insert, but upon placing another coin into its slot it rejected it like a baby being weaned onto cow milk!

Frantically I tried pressing the coin return button, but that too refused to function. A trap I thought! After all that work to acquire £5 in coins the machine had taken it from me in a polite, but firm, mugging! But then suddenly the computers voice spurted out a different request, instead of its incessant loop informing me where to place my head it suddenly enquired into my readiness and began to count down from five!

I jumped into action bringing my head into the desired place, feeling somewhat like Louis XVI must have felt as the drum roll began. My hair was no-longer the perfect style that I had carefully arranged, having been shunted around in my blind panic, my eyes were present but displayed a slight terror over the fact that the machines were taking control. Once the countdown had ended there was a faint click and then uncomfortable silence that lasted just slightly too long.

Suddenly the bottom screen flickered into life, removing its request to choose photo type and instead informing me that it was now loading, little did I know at the time that it would never cease loading. The computers voice, now in a tone far too close to mockery, asked if I was happy with my picture. Fortunately my picture was shown on the top screen and I decided it wasn't too bad, more to the point I didn't dare ask the machine to retake it less it's patience be fully worn out.

Obviously the machine had decided that I was going to be happy with the photo no-matter how I truly felt about it, the voice politely informed me that if I wanted to retake the picture than I was to press the appropriate button on the lower screen, indeed if I was happy and wished to print the photos then I would also have to press the relevant button for my choice. As I previously stated the bottom screen would be loading forevermore, so my choices were somewhat limited.

Once again I frantically jabbed at the bottom screen hoping to spark some response into the machine, after a good 2 minutes I gave up and left the accursed machine to its diabolic functions, just as I stood up and collected my brothers footwear from the floor there was a gentle "clunk" as the photos cascaded down into the exit slot! Wallowing in the glory of victory I snatched up my photos and left, letting the curtain flap dramatically in my wake. Triumphant I began the long march home.

Mankind had bested the machines... for now.

P.S If you ever read someone saying that their life is too boring to blog about link them here!