My $8 'haunted' mall photo turned into a weird souvenir

I was at the old Sunrise Mall in Citrus Heights last weekend... the place is basically a ghost town. I saw one of those photo booth machines still on in a dark corner. Spent eight bucks for four black and white strips. The machine made this awful grinding noise and spat out pictures that were all streaky and faded... like ghost images. The last one had a weird shadow that looks exactly like a person standing behind me, but I was alone in that hallway. Has anyone else gotten a creepy keepsake from a dead mall machine that just won't quit?

2 comments

2 Comments

ross.jason6d ago

That "awful grinding noise" is the machine's old thermal printer dying. I've seen it a lot with old receipt printers at work. Those streaks and ghost images mean the print head is shot and the paper is probably expired. The shadow is just a double print from a stuck roller. Keep it as a cool memento, but that machine is on its last legs.

hayden_rodriguez5d ago

Spot on, ross.jason. Feels like everything built after 2010 is just waiting to make a specific sad noise before it quits. My coffee maker started doing a version of this last week.