Fooling the Bottle Redemption Machine

It was some combination of thrift, boredom, and my desire to clean up my apartment that ultimately led me to the Wal-Mart bottle return earlier today. The sun was out, the sky was clear, and I was in a terrific mood, all prepared to reap the rewards of roughly six months of on-and-off binge drinking.

I was in such a terrific mood, in fact, that it really didn't bother me that I had to go to the customer service desk to tell them that the one bottle redemption machine that takes glass was full, and then had to stand around for eons waiting for the "maintenance" guy to show up. This was unusual, because normally I tend to be really impatient - but I think warm weather actually changes my personality to some degree.

Anyway, when the maintenance guy was done spending an eternity-and-a-half getting the bins changed on the machine, I started putting in my bottles and enjoying the satisfying glass-shattering symphony that resulted. Most of the bottles were Mike's hard lemonade, Smirnoff Ice, Captain Morgans - all that girly stuff I drink because I don't give a shit about trying to prove how masculine I am. Anyway, the machine was rejecting the bottles of Smirnoff and Woodchuck cider, giving me some error like "we don't sell this brand". It was probably right about the cider - I'm pretty certain that stuff came from Wegmans - but I could swear I bought that Smirnoff crap from Wal-Mart. Even if I didn't - WTF? Isn't this kinda working against the purpose of the bottle return laws? I mean I was charged extra when I bought these things to give me incentive to try to recycle them and now they're going to end up in the trash anyway. Doesn't that kinda suck for everyone?

Then I had an idea. And I couldn't wait to try it.

I held onto the bottles the machine didn't take, as well as one of the bottles of Mike's lemonade. When I got home, I peeled the barcode off the bottle of Mike's, scanned it, and printed out a sheet of paper with a whole bunch of counterfeit barcodes on it. Then I cut them out and taped one to each of the rejected bottles.

"This is too easy", I was thinking. It couldn't possibly work, could it?

When I returned to Wal-Mart, I had to wait while this one other guy redeemed his bottles. The machine was rejecting his Yuengling bottles. He turns to his friend:

"Well... they sell the stuff here"

Then he shrugs, throws them in the trash, and leaves.

My turn. I start putting the previously-rejected bottles in. The machine takes them all.

Then I pull the Yuengling bottles out of the trash, tape barcodes to them, and put them in too (and note that the Yuengling bottles simply don't have any barcodes on them to begin with - how the hell are you supposed to redeem them?). Some guys see what I'm doing and one of them makes a comment about how awesome I am. I leave the store in an even better mood than I was in before.

I doubt I got enough money from that second set of bottles to make up for the burnt gasoline and wasted time that a second trip to Wal-Mart cost me. But I didn't do it for the money. I didn't do it because of principles either. I did it because machines are dumb, and I love tricking them.