VENICE, Italy — Tourists looked on in horror as gondolas struggled to move through canals that were no longer filled with water, but with paper receipts. Locals are calling it La Grande Inondazione Fiscale, or The Great Fiscal Flood.
“It started with one café that refused to send digital receipts,” said a barista as he squeezed the water out of a soggy invoice. “Now the entire canal is filled with paper, and my machine is somewhere underneath it.”
Environmentalists say the disaster is not a natural event but the result of outdated bookkeeping. “Every time a freelancer buys something and skips scanning the receipt, a tree is lost and Venice sinks a little further,” explained Dr. Luca Fattura of the International Bureau of Paper Shame.
The city is now in crisis. Tourists must wear flotation devices in areas where receipts are thickest. Residents are building makeshift boats out of VAT forms and expired invoices. Officials are holding meetings, though no decisions have been made.
But some say the disaster could have been prevented. Whispers are spreading about a mobile app that scans and stores receipts before they escape into the world.
“If SparkReceipt had existed years ago,” said one accountant, “Venice would still be floating on water instead of receipts.”
