A Man Lived in a room that had a Coin Operated Heater. He Would Put a Shilling in the Machine, turn the handle and the heater would run for a few Hours... So... Since he Often Did Not Have Money... He made a coin shaped mold on the windowsill outdoors and filled it with water... When it Froze, he put the coin shaped ice into the machine and "bought" heat for a few hours... Then the Fake Coin melted removing all evidence of the Crime...
If you remember the name of this Famous Old Time Tale please Leave a Comment or email me at gregvan [at] yahoo [dot] com.
What makes this piece very interesting to us, is that it was coin-operated. Much like a jukebox or slot machine, you paid as you played.
One morning we had no heat or hot water and could not light the boiler. My traveling companion was steaming and wanted to call the rental agent. I said “Wait a sec, let me check something”.
The gas meter, behind an access panel in the kitchen, had a mag stripe card slot. The LCD display read “£0.0”.
There was a new card sitting on top of the meter. I stuck it in, heard a click and the display read “£50.0”. Presto! Back in business.
Saved by the habit of reading old English novels. That’s where I found out about coin operated gas meters. Since the temperature there almost never drops below freezing, they don’t have to worry about frozen pipes.