Lisa the Inventor

Date: 2/8/2017

I am walking with two women (acquaintances, perhaps current colleagues) on PP & WPR, toward the 22 bus stop, on the northbound side. We took a short cut through the grass when one woman said, "Ooh, coupons!," and made a bee line toward the machine. This machine at the bus stop dispenses receipts in the waking world, but in my dream, the woman inserted her MetroCard and then the machine spit out coupons instead of a receipt for her purchase. I was going to try it next, but was distracted by what I saw on the exterior side of the bus stop shelter. Where there would normally be a life-size poster for an advertisement, the underside was exposed. It was unlike anything I've seen before. It was a large, exposed circuit board, and there were 5-6 pens attached inside a flexible rubber arm. Each pen was about 8" below the one above it. The pens were about 12-16" long and protruding 10-20° away from circuit board. They were only ink-filled, with the metal tips—similar to the inside you'll see of a ball-point pen, but much larger and covered with rubber, not plastic. No outside cover was needed, because they were mechanical and robotic, controlled by the circuit boards, not used by human hands. I knew immediately what I was looking at, and said, "Ooh, clever!" to nobody in particular. I was the only one among the surrounding strangers and my acquaintances to stop and notice or to care about this life-sized circuit board. I believe each pen was to write the winning daily lottery numbers on a poster, if it was working properly and a poster would eventually be placed to cover the exposed circuit board.