VENICE, Italy — Tourists screamed as gondolas scraped through murky canals, not of water—but of paper. Literal tons of itemized receipts bobbed across St. Mark’s Square. Locals are calling it La Grande Inondazione Fiscale — The Great Fiscal Flood.
“It started with one café insisting on handwritten receipts and Excel spreadsheets,” said a barista as he fought off a floating pile of espresso-stained invoices. “Now, I can’t find my machine under six months of VAT nightmares.”
Environmentalists have linked the disaster to the city’s outdated accounting habits. “Every time a small business refuses a digital system, a rainforest dies,” warned Dr. Luca Fattura of the International Bureau of Paper Shame. “It’s not bookkeeping—it’s tree murder.”
The worst offenders? Businesses still hoarding shoe boxes full of thermal paper, and freelancers who snap a photo once in a while and call it a ‘system.’
Officials have declared a state of fiscal emergency. Tourists must now wear flotation devices in high-density receipt zones. Local carpenters have started crafting boats out of Excel-printed monthly summaries.
The government, in typical fashion, is buried in the mess. “We’re evaluating the situation,” said the Minister of Infrastructure, from atop a soggy pile of unclaimed mileage deductions.
But whispers spread of hope. A new era. A digital solution so simple, so elegant, it could dry up Venice’s financial misery in seconds.
“If SparkReceipt had been here a decade ago,” said one tearful accountant, “we’d still be walking. And we wouldn’t be swimming in tax-deductible trash.”
Note: This is satire. But the chaos of paper receipts is real—and entirely avoidable. SparkReceipt helps you track, scan, and save every cent. Without the water damage.
