Gov’t Agencies Add More Soul-Sucking Machines To Waiting Areas

The old units will be given to the Postal Authority, which sees as its mission to keep its methods firmly planted in a previous era.

Jerusalem, April 27 – The National Insurance Institute, Vehicle Licensing Authority, Ministry of the Interior, and other government entities that receive the public have begun installing more soul-sucking machines in their waiting areas, a government spokesman announced today.

Bura Krattia, Deputy Director of the Take a Number Authority, an inter-ministry body, called a press conference this morning to inform the public of the change, which will see a doubling of the number of soul-suckers over the next year. She predicted that within three years, the soul-sucking capacity of the government agencies and entities equipped with the machines will extract souls from members of the public at eight times the current rate.

“After years of bureaucratic delay, we are proud to announce the launch of this new program to bring these entities’ soul-sucking capacity and technology into the twenty-first century,” she declared. “Visitors to the waiting areas of these agencies and ministries will experience their souls being sucked out of them much faster then before, thanks to the new technology.”

Krattia added that the new machines will gradually replace the old but sturdy soul-suckers currently in operation. “The old soul-suckers, some of which have been in continuous operation for thirty years, are still in fine working order,” she noted. “But they use obsolescent technology, and we have to keep up with the times. The old units will be given to the Postal Authority, which sees as its mission to keep its methods firmly planted in a previous era.”

The new machines were manufactured by a consortium of local companies with ties to senior political figures, and include innovative features. Chief among them, boasted Shoev, Ltd. CEO Mush Khat, is a set of controls that allows operators to exclude certain parts of the facility from the soul-sucking with a simple set of commands that must be approved by three levels of oversight, a feature that will keep the bureaucrats who work with the machines long-term from dangerous overexposure. “The older units, as effective as they were, did not pose significant risks to facility staff, as the secondhand soul-sucking was well below harmful levels. But in order to aim them properly, they had to be manually rotated, which union rules would not allow the desk jockeys to do. The new units are more powerful, but can be programmed only to suck souls from the waiting area.”

Clerks at the Ministry of the Interior expressed only moderate enthusiasm at the feature, but welcomed the installation of new technology. “It’s nice, and it looks sleek,” offered Alona di Mentor, a shift supervisor at the population registry facility on Queen Shlomtzion St. “But the so-called safety feature is kind of a waste. One of the job requirements here at entry-level is that you give up your soul upon being hired.”