It’s not easy to surprise people nowadays, especially in a good way.
But two Bowen Island youth did just that on the weekend, with a mysterious, cardboard vending machine, parked on the sidewalk in the Cove.
Fifty or so people stopped to investigate, said Rhiannon Van Lidth de Jeude Roemer, 13, who co-created the machine with her older brother, Taliesin, 16.
“We didn’t really do it to make money,” said Rhiannon, adding it was a lot of fun.
How did it all come about?
“We had the box. We started cutting holes in it,” said Taliesin, laughing. "It was to have fun and make people smile."
The vending machine itself took a few hours to make, he said, with cutaways for inserting coins and a menu bar with selections.
People could choose from a pretty diverse range of items, like 25-cent jokes, $1 oranges, $600 “genuine Bowen Spring Water,” a $1 pet rock, or more obscure options — like $3 for nothing.
A dog or a seal puppet was on hand to help with the order.
“We took turns being inside it,” said Taliesin, adding on Sunday some of their friends joined in too, manning the puppets and the machine.
And did anyone actually buy nothing for $3?
“My uncle got it,” said Rhiannon, laughing. He wanted to see what would happen, she said. And? "Nothing happened."
For five cents people selected “love,” and Rhiannon said, people got customer-specific compliments written on a note.
The vending machine had a peephole so whoever was manning the machine could see the actual customer, she said: “We complimented people’s bags and glasses and clothing.”
Sometimes the puppets would spit coins back at people.
That happened when the machine was out of something, like potato chips or pet rocks.
"I was really surprised by the amount of people who chose pet rocks," Rhiannon said. "We ran out of pet rocks every day and we had made over 10 every day."
She laughed, adding: "A lot of people gave them back after."
Their mom, Emily, said it was fun to watch people approach the box and interact with the puppets. She watched from across the street.
“It was basically a comedy show,” she said. “It was just so entertaining.”
And that was the whole point, said Taliesin.
“It was really fun,” said Taliesin. “It made people happy.”
