Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
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Friendship vending machine

Buy a friend for $1.99
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You put the money in, and in back of the machine a real person trained by the Friendship Vending NGO walks out and befriends you. For more pay this person becomes your best friend, listening to your problems, steering you away from trouble and helping you out in need, laughing when you are funny, sympathizing with your sorrow and just enjoying the conversation with you.

You cannot reach this friend by phone, letters or computer, nor by any other device other than seeking this person personally, at the location of the vending machine. Using the vending machine you can check when your friend is available or choose to just talk with someone else.

As a true friend, the friend will also assist in preventing the client's addiction to the Friendship Vendor service, and from becoming physically bonded with the friend. In order to assist with the friendship sustainability, the friend presents a fictitious very friendly person with a fictitious background, family and history, all supplied by the NGO, assisting and protecting the friend from any attachments outside the Friendship Vending environment.

Friendship Vending also provides assistance with mean or bad people who only intend to vandalize the friendship or mock it. The FV friends are given cognitive practice sessions, crisis management and discussion skill workshops, and are released to the public only after successfully passing an intensive course.

A security unit of FV watches over the operation and is available at hand if anything goes violent.

There is also a fund for helping raise awareness and for raising the venture capital needed for the ongoing operations of FV, when times are slow. This is called the Friends of Friendship Vending Fund.

Just a note: Friendship Vending friends are barred from becoming members of Friends of Friendship Vending.

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[Edited with following clarification] The vriending machine is regular sized, like an ATM. The FV friend will be notified via phone about the befriending request.

The friend can be anyone who passes the course successfully, and waits for befrienders in the FV van, parked somewhere nearby. Or in a nearby hotel lobby. If the befriender is a homeless person or someone on low income, the FV will supply housing and a car. The friend can sit with the befriender in FV approved publicly open locations nearby, no need to stay standing in the rain.

pashute, Oct 15 2015

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       So you got someone who is wiling to live their life in a vending machine, do ya? (I'll be your friend, [pashute], for free.
blissmiss, Oct 15 2015
  

       The money works out if the friend is an AI.
sninctown, Oct 15 2015
  

       )
MaxwellBuchanan, Oct 15 2015
  

       Perfect for motels.
esotericbyte, Oct 15 2015
  

       (Thank you, [MaxwellBuchanan])   

       [bliss], I suppose that would depend on the wage. Certain folks I know work in conditions eerily similar to this, but they do sleep and shower somewhere else, presumably.
absterge, Oct 15 2015
  

       Is this vending machine bigger on the inside and does it have a bar?
wjt, Oct 16 2015
  

       The vriending machine is regular sized, like an ATM. The FV friend will be notified via phone about the befriending request.   

       The friend can be anyone who passes the course successfully, and waits for befrienders in the FV van, parked somewhere nearby. Or in a nearby hotel lobby. If the befriender is a homeless person or someone on low income, the FV will supply housing and a car. The friend can sit with the befriender in FV approved publicly open locations nearby, no need to stay standing in the rain.   

       Editing the idea and adding this this clarification
pashute, Oct 17 2015
  

       Thanks bliss. Actually I have quite a few, who proved themselves when times were hard. But I know of many people who don't have friends and do need them.
pashute, Oct 17 2015
  
      
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