The Poor Stay Standing, while the Rich Relax on the Pay & Sit Bench.

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2021-05-17 11:43:24

Pay & Sit is yet another device to drive the poor from shared public spaces and let them instead be monopolized by apple-munching, mineral-water-sipping yuppies. Pay & Sit is a park bench dreamed up by designer Designer Fabian Brunsing. When at rest, it becomes the porcupine of the street-furniture world, deploying vicious metal spikes to keep soft rear-ends away. Only when a 50-cent coin is dropped in the slot do the spikes lower mechanically and offer up a smooth, comfortable surface.

Even the office-goers aren't welcome to linger or dilly-dally in their relaxing: After a short interval, an alarm sounds, closely followed by the spikes popping back out. The message is clear: You sit, you pay.

If the Pay & Sit were ever to make it into the real world (unlikely, as this design is already a couple years old), then bums would have yet another sob-story designed to separate us from yet another few quarters: "Spare some change, guv'nor. I haven't sat down for a week." And then of course, there are bound to be people who find this new arrangement very comfortable indeed.