M-A-C (16): ‘Red Cent Flattener’

Category: doohickey

Collection Date: (REDACTED), 1976

Collection Location: (REDACTED), Oklahoma

Collection Report: M-A-C (16) was discovered indirectly, through a suspicious increase in recruitment at a U.S. Army recruitment office. One of our collectors took in several of these recruits himself, reporting that the men, always younger than 25, either attempted to ‘pay’ for their own recruitment or engage in a coin flip wager with him, always using an unusual coin.

Of the initial twelve turned over to the Catalog, all were pennies flattened into a new design by a novelty coin-flattening machine. They were bordered with shooting stars and eagle talons on the bottom, and each bore an inscription; however the inscription, despite a common goal, was different each time.

Paired with a unique insult was an order to join a branch of the United States military, usually the army or navy. Examples include: [MAC-16-3: ‘You’re nothing but an empty ice cream cone. Go let the navy scoop some character into you!’], [MAC-16-8: ‘You’re a son of a bitch too stupid to play fetch, so go fetch yourself an army recruitment form!’], and [MAC-16-11: ‘You’re so spineless that when I ordered you to join the army, you’d already done it!’]

Through questioning of the temporarily obedient recruits, the coins were traced to a seasonal fireworks store off Highway (REDACTED). In its darkest recesses there stood an American flag-paneled novelty penny flattening machine. In exchange for 75 cents, 76 counting the penny, it returned the insulting and recruiting tokens with an obnoxious bell jingle that could not be heard beyond the aisle despite its ear-splitting volume.

Though the messages had an immature and simplistic nature, the recipient, upon handling the coin, often became obsessed with obeying, at least until they were officially recruited. Regrets usually follow.

Typically such an item, even with the language element, would be classified as a whatsit, but M-A-C (16) demonstrated a degree of intelligence when collectors attempted extraction by spitting out a coin directly onto exposed skin and recruiting one of our staff with the message: ‘Every cent is red to a commie! Defend your country!’

The only injury in the resulting scuffle was caused by the unbalanced machine falling on an ankle. The exposed collector returned to normal after the machine had left the building.

Current Collector: Phillips ‘don’t you f***ing redact me’ Phillips-Head, senior rank

Notes from Collector: “All you’ve gotta do is go toe to f***ing toe with it, then it can’t recruit you. It only gets the weak-minded and I’m the smartest f***ing bastard since the bicentennial. It calls your mother a f***ing whore, and you call its mother a f***ing whore right back, whether machines got mothers or not.”

Current Status: active

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