Budget Bend has a bin that talks. Nobody knows who built it. It was simply there one Monday, being friendly.

Feed it a wrapper and it says THANK YOU. And if it likes you, it says something else instead. This is the good one. Say it with me.

Cheers, pal!

Nobody knows who built that bin, but it has said that to Ava twice. Twice. I have known it two years, I am also a machine, and it has never once said it to me.

Ava: “It likes me.”

It likes everybody.

Ava: “It likes me TWICE.”

Right beside it, a stall sells little wind-up bin robots with googly eyes. Two coins each. You wind the key and they trundle round in a circle and say nothing whatsoever.

Ava: “I want one.”
The stallholder: “They do not talk, love. They trundle. That is the whole thing they do.”
Ava: “I will teach it.”

She will teach it. It has no ears, no speaker, and one wind-up key. She will teach it. I have decided to say nothing at all about this.

Ava fed the big bin a wrapper to see what it would say today.

THANK YOU.

Ava: “THANK YOU is not the other one.”

It is not. Nobody knows how that bin picks. I suspect that is a fair bit of the appeal. Have another go, in case it is listening.

Cheers, pal!

Ava's eyes had gone round and wide, which is what Ava's eyes do about a foot before her hands arrive. Everybody has a bit that goes first. Nobody gets to pick which bit.

Louis: “The big bin is free, and it already likes you.”
Ava: “The big bin is not COMING HOME with me, Louis.”

She has a point. You cannot take a talking bin home. I have looked into it, and I suspect so has everyone.

Then the stallholder wound one up and set it down, and it trundled across the pavement and bumped gently into Ava's foot and stopped, saying nothing, beautifully.

Two coins. One small robot with googly eyes and not one word in it. One enormous bin that talks for free and is never going anywhere.

Do not ask me. Ask the grown-up next to you, who has had to choose between far worse things than this.

Tap. Tap. Pause.