Does it have any Nuka Cola?
July 13, 2018 6:13 PM   Subscribe

 
Yessss, I love things like this. Massive kudos to the mystery people who have been keeping this going. I hope they can keep it up and maintain the mystery for many more years.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 6:25 PM on July 13, 2018 [9 favorites]


Look... on that day that God rested, he wanted an ice cold bottle of Coke... This is God's vending machine... The sooner we can all accept this vending machine is just as religiously significant as the Shroud of Turin, you'll understand the meaning of the soda it gives you.
posted by Nanukthedog at 6:30 PM on July 13, 2018 [8 favorites]


I lived around the corner from this machine for several years. I hope no one ever ruins the secret, I've had some amazing sodas come out of that thing at 3 in the morning. It's also one of the last vestiges of what the Capitol Hill neighborhood used to be before the tech/housing boom: lovingly worn-in, quirky, and delightfully inconsistent.
posted by Snacks at 6:33 PM on July 13, 2018 [34 favorites]


Now I must visit mystery machine.
posted by Artw at 6:35 PM on July 13, 2018 [3 favorites]


We happened to randomly walk by this when visiting. A friend who lives in the area was disappointed the next day when his surprise had been completely spoiled.
posted by adamsc at 6:41 PM on July 13, 2018 [3 favorites]


We had something like this at a co-op where I lived in the 70's. It was one of the old single brand, single vend machines. Put your money in and no choices. Except it wasn't stocked with soda. Rather, it was full of whatever cheap-ass beer would fit in the bottle gates. Ya pays your money and ya takes your chances. It was a sad day indeed when Special Export came tumbling out...
posted by jim in austin at 6:52 PM on July 13, 2018 [5 favorites]


A mystery a little like the Poe Toaster. Hopefully no one fucks it up by spoiling it.
posted by Nelson at 7:03 PM on July 13, 2018 [6 favorites]


I pass by the Mystery Machine on a semi-regular basis and not once have I actually had any damn cash to put in the thing when I do. Someday.
posted by egypturnash at 7:23 PM on July 13, 2018 [1 favorite]


SOMEONE GET RAMBO MUELLER ON THIS THE SUSPENSE IS KILLING ME 🕵🏻‍♂️
posted by Foci for Analysis at 7:26 PM on July 13, 2018 [1 favorite]


When I was in college, the fraternity -- don't look at me like that, we were a bunch of harmless python-spouting nerds -- had a couple of vending machines in the basement. Somehow the Pepsi machine was still getting stocked normally, but we just stocked Coke machine ourselves. Some of the buttons read

ROULETTE -- dispensed a random cheap can of beer
GRAPE SODA SO REAL THERE'S A SEED IN EVERY CAN

and, briefly,

POTATO

which dispensed a raw potato. Occasionally someone would be surprised that the button labeled POTATO dispensed a POTATO. ISTR that if you bought a potato you could contact the Bar Czar to redeem it for an actual drink, but this was like 1990.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 7:38 PM on July 13, 2018 [38 favorites]


Oh wow, this is super cool. I know on some level that I’ll albost certainly never be able to try it out, partially because Seattle is pretty far from where I’ll ever be, but partially because I worry that now that the secret is out to the extent that I know about it, it isn’t long for this world.
posted by DoctorFedora at 7:39 PM on July 13, 2018 [4 favorites]


I wonder if it dispenses Doctor Smooth's Secret Recipe Soda. I've got a six pack of it and have never had a sip. I just like the name.
posted by brundlefly at 7:42 PM on July 13, 2018 [2 favorites]


As if this alone wasn’t unusual enough, the machine has also been known to sometimes spit out otherwise normal brands of soda, but with the cans sporting vintage livery that hasn’t been used in decades.

I think they may be stocking this from the basement of my grandmother.
posted by Sequence at 7:42 PM on July 13, 2018 [8 favorites]


Oh yes! I love everything about this, the sheer mischievousness and planning that must go into creating a little bit of magic in a drab, mundane world.
posted by I'm always feeling, Blue at 7:42 PM on July 13, 2018 [5 favorites]


Aaaand because I can't stop myself, I must wonder aloud whether this here Seattle-based machine should it one day dispense non-carbonated beverages could be accused of Sub Pop?
posted by I'm always feeling, Blue at 7:46 PM on July 13, 2018 [10 favorites]


Containment senses tingling...hrm, yup, SCP-261.
posted by genpfault at 7:46 PM on July 13, 2018 [12 favorites]


I love this!!!
posted by blaneyphoto at 7:46 PM on July 13, 2018


I used to pass by that machine all the time. It never occurred to me to question its existence. Like, of course there's a Coke machine outside of the locksmith's.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 7:58 PM on July 13, 2018 [5 favorites]


i'm sad to report that the machine has gone missing for about two weeks now. but it may return?
posted by bruceo at 8:01 PM on July 13, 2018 [2 favorites]


I would spend a large amount of money to find out if I could get a can of Nozz-A-La.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:34 PM on July 13, 2018 [2 favorites]


No ?DIET MYSTERY button for thirsty diabetics?
posted by The Underpants Monster at 8:44 PM on July 13, 2018 [2 favorites]


Georgia Tech has a nerd frat that stocked a similar machine in the mid-2000s, only with more weird off-brands and Japanese sodas, and also the place smelled like a frat with a Mystery Soda button.
posted by deludingmyself at 8:49 PM on July 13, 2018


How has this not been posted before?

I have had many random sodas from this machine, often at like 3-4 AM and stumbling home drunk and in dire need of some kind of liquid that isn't booze, rain or piss.

I don't think it does it any more, but I hear it used to randomly dispense cheap beers amid the sodas.
posted by loquacious at 8:54 PM on July 13, 2018 [1 favorite]


Doctor Smooth's Secret Recipe Soda. I've got a six pack of it and have never had a sip.

my dude/dudette, you just brought me back to high school. we constantly bought that stuff because it sounded like a potable sequel to the movie superfly or something. sadly it pretty much tastes like dr. pepper, but still.
posted by wibari at 9:00 PM on July 13, 2018


Hmm, a vending machine that dispenses anomalous items has suddenly disappeared. I guess Seattle Cola Products finally got to it.
posted by FJT at 9:48 PM on July 13, 2018 [2 favorites]


Aw, that's a shame. Nothing I enjoyed more on a rainy Baldurday afternoon than popping a handful of Woodrow Wilson dimes into that thing and picking up a couple cans of Black Cherry Slice to sip as I browsed through my pink Kindle.
posted by bartleby at 10:13 PM on July 13, 2018 [4 favorites]


Very Pynchonesque and reminds me of Byron the Bulb:

As his burning lengthens toward 600 hours, the monitors in Switzerland begin to keep more of an eye on Byron. The Phoebus Surveillance Room is located under a little-known Alp, a chilly room crammed full of German electro-hardware, glass, brass, ebonite, and silver, massive terminal blocks shaggy with copper clips and screws, and a cadre of superclean white-robed watchers who wander meter to meter, light as snowdevils, making sure that nothing’s going wrong, that through no bulb shall the mean operating life be extended. You can imagine what it would do to the market if that started happening.

Keep dispensing, soda machine!
posted by ashbury at 10:59 PM on July 13, 2018 [1 favorite]


Mystery Soda Theater
posted by BigHeartedGuy at 11:12 PM on July 13, 2018 [4 favorites]


I hope no one ever ruins the secret

Sorry, but it's pretty clearly run by the tooth fairy. Think about it - takes quarters, dispenses sugary drinks, and nobody ever sees it being restocked. What else could it be? It has to close the loop somehow.
posted by sysinfo at 12:05 AM on July 14, 2018 [9 favorites]


Nuke-Cola Classic is weak sauce and old hat. You SHOULD if it dispenses Quantum...
posted by Samizdata at 12:13 AM on July 14, 2018


Wow. Made that comment then wandered off to another tab. Please strike the second sentence, and replace it with the following.

You SHOULD see if it dispenses Quantum...
posted by Samizdata at 12:24 AM on July 14, 2018 [1 favorite]


In the mellenia to come, the machine will be dispensing Super Porp.
posted by phigmov at 1:41 AM on July 14, 2018 [2 favorites]


Actually I enjoyed the virile brevity of the first draft, Samizdata.
posted by Segundus at 2:57 AM on July 14, 2018 [2 favorites]


A few weeks ago I had a prompt to write something about Seattle. So I wrote a song about the mystery soda machine.
posted by pxe2000 at 3:07 AM on July 14, 2018


Yes but does it have God?
posted by ardgedee at 4:26 AM on July 14, 2018


I used to live a few blocks away from the machine, and I used to keep my car in the garage around the corner (underneath what used to be the shitty dildo store and is probably now a fusion joint of some kind). One time I was going to pick up my car for errands and saw a man refilling the machine. He had a beard, but no fairy wings.
posted by palomar at 6:31 AM on July 14, 2018 [1 favorite]


I could go for a Josta right about now.
posted by 4ster at 6:44 AM on July 14, 2018 [3 favorites]


He had a beard, but no fairy wings.

That you could see. You have to believe!
posted by Splunge at 7:23 AM on July 14, 2018 [3 favorites]


My college dorm (WIBSTR) had a vending machine like this but it dispensed random cans of beer: shitty beer if you were lucky, otherwise super shitty beer. Getting a Miller Genuine Draft out of the thing felt like winning the lottery.
posted by exogenous at 7:39 AM on July 14, 2018 [2 favorites]


saw a man refilling the machine

Well sure, there has to be a human decoy so the locksmiths don't get suspicious. I don't advise checking into them further - think about who would agree to be paid in quarters and spare molars.
posted by sysinfo at 8:53 AM on July 14, 2018 [3 favorites]


I always assumed, given that it was a perfectly ordinary object in a very unusual location, that it was probably a TARDIS. So the fact that it just simply disappeared a couple weeks back came as no surprise to me.
posted by webmutant at 12:45 PM on July 14, 2018


The owners of the machine did leave behind a taped note in its place stating the machine “Went for a walk.”

At least it's coming back after it's stretched it's legs for a bit.
posted by Margalo Epps at 1:58 PM on July 14, 2018


I know Old Seattle is long dead and gone, but the Off-Broadway magic of that mystery pop vending machine is one of the few faithful tethers to the past that remain. I hope, like the gum wall, its disappearance will be short-lived.
posted by duffell at 11:11 AM on July 16, 2018 [1 favorite]


Japanese anthology horror series Prayer Beads has something to say about this.
posted by BiggerJ at 8:54 PM on July 16, 2018


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