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Day 87 of "Figuring it Out" - Mystery Soda Machine

Updated: Oct 3

Kia Ora friends and fam and bloggo regulars! Happy Sunday.



How are ya'll going today? Last night I was starting to feel a lot better but when I woke up this morning, my energy levels were extra fatigued and I'm not sure if it's from being sick or the iron or a bit of both. I'm getting kinda annoyed about people telling me what to do with my health. I'm going to follow medical advice, not some random's advice and yes, I'm a little grumpy today so deal with it. I think the isolation is getting to me mentally and I'm bloody pissed off that people who go outside while sick don't have any compassion for the other people they made sick. Like seriously. Do you care? Probably not. I just think doing the right thing and having common decency is important.


Anyway, Melbourne weather is warm today although I've still got a bit of a fever so that's why I might be feeling a little cold. So far today, Luke made us a nice brekkie, then I went back to sleep for a while, went outside for a little bit so I don't go insane, and watched a bit of YouTube and TV. I'm struggling a bit mentally at the moment so long periods of not doing much is really making me miserable. Although I did learn a few things today that I wanted to discuss in today's blog post and today it's all about the mystery soda machine.


I'm kinda curious about it. I watched a YouTube video earlier today from Be Amazed's Channel about "Urban Mysteries No One Can Solve" and the first thing that looked at was this mystery soda machine and it's one mystery that really stuck out to me. I mean, they even have a Facebook page "here" and the last post was from Jan 2022 so that got me wondering. What the heck happened to this soda machine?


Let's get some context shall we and take a stroll down memory lane or over to the wonderful world of Wikipedia (heh, I like the alliteration there). The article is "here". So in Capitol Hill, Seattle, Washington, USA, from the late 1990s until about 2018, a mysterious soda machine popped up but it wasn't just any soda machine, it was a mystery soda machine - aka you didn't know what drink you were getting from the vending machine as you would normally and what makes it crazier, is that the soda cans that were coming out of it were really random flavours (or unusual) that you couldn't get in the shops anymore (no longer manufactured). According to Wikipedia, Broadway Locksmith (where the machine was located) are the ones who gave power to the machine. However, to this day all the employees have maintained that they have no idea who put the machine there and who restocked it (although that may be a little white lie).


In 2002, the machine had drinks priced at 55cents (eventually inflation led to 1 dollar by 2018) with normal buttons and then only one mystery button BUT this soon changed (after gaining media attention) and all the buttons were now mystery buttons. This is when a local legend began of the soda machine potentially being haunted (the more I read about this, I'm like why was this so interesting and it's clearly just someone messing with the good people of Capitol Hill, but anyway). Okay, there was even a movie made about this machine and honestly, I'm lowkey jealous that nothing weird ever happens around me like that, just creepy things. I wanna make a movie like this. You can watch the film "here." But yeah, have I mentioned that we don't know who's restocking the machine either? Yep, that's right, no one ever saw anyone restocking the machine - I guess that also ties into the whole idea that it's haunted. However, in 2014, there was an image online that showed a man and a woman in broad daylight restocking the soda machine.

Maybe the owners of the mystery soda machine?

However, these two people never came forward and no one knew who they were. But maybe that's because there was no bloody permit for this machine so they probably would have got in a helluva lotta trouble if they did.


The next crazy thing to happen was in 2018, when the machine suddenly vanished and all that was left next to it was a note that said "went for a walk" LOLwut. Even weirder was its Facebook page even left a status saying "Going for a walk, need to find myself. Maybe take a shower even" hahahahaha LOLwut again. Why am I suddenly so invested in what happened to this soda machine? Following this, there were a lot of photoshopped images on the Facebook page of the machine going to random places. And it looks like it's been totally defaced by graffiti in the last Facebook post from 2022 and most likely doesn't work anymore. But, will we ever find out who owned this mystery soda machine? Were the man and woman photographed restocking it, really the owners or were they just the restock people? Does Broadway Locksmith know more than they're letting on?


TBH, I kinda think that the Broadway Locksmith company knows a bit more than they are letting on, and because of the "illegal" nature of it, they probably won't ever come forward. Or, maybe someone will in like 20 years, so keep an eye out.


Enjoy some photos below:



I love that this vending machine went on a random Photoshop holiday haha I think this is just so funny.


What a random adventure we went on today! For today's question, I want to know, if you had to take this mystery soda machine somewhere, where would you take it? Let me know in the comments below. I'd probably take it to some random place in NZ that represents kiwi culture (maybe an All Blacks game on home turf idk). If it wasn't getting to close to dinner time and I felt a bit better, I might have made an actual Photoshop image myself but maybe we'll keep that for another time.


That's all for today! Much love, Ash xx



3/10/2024 Update - I made a YT video about this and never added it in so here you go!!




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