Man invents bizarre stamp-licking machine using tears from cutting an onion

By Malavika Pradeep

Published Oct 12, 2022 at 09:00 AM

Reading time: 2 minutes

37035

Do you hate the pasty taste of postage stamps and absolutely despise having to lick an envelope before sealing it? What about literally wasting your tears while cutting a batch of onions? Sure, the remorseless vegetable puts us through eye-watering pain that we can’t do much to avoid—apart from wearing a pair of swimming goggles and looking ridiculous—but that doesn’t mean that the effort our tear ducts put into lubricating our eyes have to be futile.

Introducing the effortless stamp-licking machine, brainchild of London-based inventor Joseph’s Machines, created using a wild combination of everyday household items—including a glass vase, ping pong balls, and pencils.

Powered by tears produced from dicing onions, the machine can be made with a funnel that first catches your weeps. The tears are then filtered into another funnel supported by a glass vase and a bottle of smoke seasoning (yes, in that exact order) before it’s dropped slowly onto the blank side of a postage stamp.

After you wipe the residue from your unintentional crying sesh, you can go ahead and place the sufficiently-wet stamp onto the corner of an envelope. And voilà, you’ve successfully given a new meaning to the age-old phrase: “I put my blood, sweat, and tears into my work.”

Man invents bizarre stamp-licking machine using tears from cutting an onion
Man invents bizarre stamp-licking machine using tears from cutting an onion

But wait, there’s more to Joseph’s Machines’ tear-jerker of an invention than just automating the process of slapping stamps with your bodily fluid. In his video, which has garnered over five million views on YouTube Shorts and 431,000 views and counting on TikTok, the creator can also be seen sealing entire envelopes with the movement of his knife while dicing the onions.

Being hooked up to what seems like a tabletop pasta- and noodle-making machine, the knife essentially powers a thread that slowly pulls an envelope under the second funnel from the earlier apparatus. The tears collected here are then dropped evenly throughout the self-adhesive ridges.

What’s more is that, in the case of the envelopes, you don’t have to manually pick them up and press down to seal them completely. Instead, a glass tumbler does this job—pretty orgasmically, might I add—by smoothly closing the envelope in true trickshot fashion. Although the glass does end up shattering by falling off the table in the end, what’s a little sacrifice for an invention this amazing?

“I think it works faster with tears of suffering,” a TikTok user commented on the creator’s video. “Must [have] been a sad letter,” a second added. Nevertheless, everyone seemed to agree on one fact: Joseph’s Machines just birthed a genius invention that nobody knew they needed in their lives until now.

I mean, bacteriologists around the world have been warning us for years about the dangers of stamp licking anyways. What better use of undesirably-triggered tears than automating the otherwise-microbe-infested process, right? At the end of the day, remember what R&B icon the Weeknd himself said: “Save your tears for another stamp.”

@josephmachines

Easy stamp-licking machine, using tears from cutting an onion. #lifedevice

♬ Monkeys Spinning Monkeys - Kevin MacLeod & Kevin The Monkey

Keep On Reading

By Eliza Frost

Why is everyone saying ‘Six-Seven’? The meaning behind the viral phrase

By Eliza Frost

How exactly is the UK government’s Online Safety Act keeping young people safe? 

By Eliza Frost

Hailey Bieber just listed all the beauty treatments she swears by

By Eliza Frost

NHS makes morning-after pill free at 10,000 pharmacies across England

By Eliza Frost

Is Belly Conklin the problem in The Summer I Turned Pretty?

By Eliza Frost

What is dry begging? And why is it a relationship red flag?

By Eliza Frost

Vogue has declared boyfriends embarrassing, and the internet agrees

By Eliza Frost

Renters’ Rights Bill becomes law; this is what it means for you

By Eliza Frost

Misinformation spread by wellness influencers online is leading to falling contraceptive pill use

By Eliza Frost

People think Donald Trump is dead and they’re using the Pentagon Pizza Index to prove it

By Eliza Frost

How The Summer I Turned Pretty licensed so much of Taylor Swift’s discography for its soundtrack 

By Eliza Frost

Bad Bunny is not touring the US due to fear of ICE raids at concerts

By Eliza Frost

How to spot a performative male out in the wild 

By Eliza Frost

Glen Powell’s GQ photoshoot is a satiric look at modern day males—and he’s in on the joke 

By Eliza Frost

Netflix’s Adolescence sweeps Emmys, with star Owen Cooper making history as youngest-ever male winner

By Eliza Frost

Online pornography showing choking to be made illegal, says government 

By Eliza Frost

Everything you need to know about Trump’s state visit, including that Epstein projection

By Eliza Frost

What is Shrekking? The latest toxic dating trend explained 

By Eliza Frost

The Life of a Showgirl or The Life of a Tradwife? Unpicking Taylor Swift’s new album

By Eliza Frost

Zohran Mamdani wins New York City mayoral race, and wife Rama Duwaji becomes city’s Gen Z first lady