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MBTA CharlieCod

a MBTA sign showing a plush codfish captioned with 'New ways to pay your fare are here.'

With the new CharlieCod, you can show off your love of fish while paying your MBTA fares.


Tris and I came up with the idea of the CharlieCod after reading the Wikipedia article on the CharlieCard, which mentions the "Fare Cod" as a rejected idea for the name of the system. I thought it'd be funny to make this joke a reality by sewing a CharlieCard into a plush codfish, so I bought one from a listing with this delightful image:
a picture of a plush codfish captioned 'our cod' and a picture of a real codfish captioned 'real cod'

With the cod in hand, I cut it open with a seam ripper, slid a blank CharlieCard inside, and sewed it back together. The seam is barely visible in real life unless you're looking for it.
cutting open a plush codfish with a seam ripper, exposing the stuffing withina MBTA CharlieCard inserted into a slit cut in a plush codfish
a plush codfish with a rough seam on it

I tested it out on a ticket vending machine the next time I went to a MBTA station, and it worked!
a plush codfish tapped on the reader of a MBTA ticket machine, showing a card with $0.00 on it