As humans beings, we can't necessarily be blamed for feeling like nothing makes sense. It often doesn't. As a matter of fact, I would venture to guess that as a population we know less about the world now then we did 2000 years ago. Sure, we understand more of HOW things work, but the why is often still a mystery. Time, it seems, doesn't always solve the mysteries that plague us. Part of this explains why looking back at the past can appear to be fruitless for explaining why we used to do certain things. Can you look back on slavery, WW2, or anything that had something to do with civil right and explains WHY we as a race used to allow certain things to happen? The fact that the eventually stopped doesn't change the fact that they were allowed to happen in the first place. It is this question that I've been asking myself lately in regards to my own past. I'm a few months removed from joining the "30 and over" crowd, and I've been taking some time out to reflect on the last decade of my life to sort of assess where I've been in relation to where I'm headed. For be totally honest, I'm not sure how I feel about it. Did I do enough right? Did I take enough risks? Did I make the best out of this decade that I could have? Part of me says yes, but a deeper, more introspective part keeps screaming no. The truth? All this is absolutely freaking me out.
I own a cat. I donât know why, he just showed up and I kept him. Now I love the little asshole. I canât eat bananas unless theyâre slightly green. If theyâre more than 2 days old from the store, I throw them away. Elevators give me severe vertigo, near the point of passing out. I close my eyes when I brush my teeth. I posses a very public man crush on Derek Jeter. Fuck it. Or him. Iâm black, and I donât like hot sauce. I love, for no apparent reason, mail of any kind. Email, snail mail, and ESPECIALLY packages. I experience random flashes of dyslexia. I write and see backwards things sometimes. My favorite day of the week is Monday.
so i found these in my friendâs freezer while having a sleepover and became extremely scared. when i went to confront her about it she looked me dead in the eye and whispered,
                                  I do not have a good relationship with vending machines.
Now, Iâm not going to overreact and say that I âhateâ vending machines. Hate is such a strong word. Rather, Iâd like say that I am not 100% happy with their existence. The whole process of buying something from a vending machine reminds me of talking to a robot with money. Except, this robot is more prone to throw the proverbial middle finger at you whenever it decides it doesnât want to cooperate. How many times have you wanted to get something out of a vending machine, only to have it laugh at you? Do any of these scenarios sound familiar?
Does not have what you want
Has what you want, but is out of it
Out of service completely but still looks like it's working until you push a button
Will not take your money for no good reason
Take note of the bold. I cannot understand this. I cannot understand how a robot - whose only reason to exist is to take my money in exchange for an undoubtedly unhealthy dose of sugar - can refuse to honor that contract. Why does this happen? I donât know. Maybe Iâll never know. Maybe this will change one day. Maybe there will be a time when I walk up to the robot with the glass face and offer it my hard earned money and it will operate correctly, 100% of the time. IN MY DREAMS. Today, however was CERTAINLY not one of those days.
So there it was, lunch time. Iâm hungry and thirsty. I usually get lunch from outside of my building somewhere, but today of all days I just so happen to bring my lunch into work. But, I didnât want to drink the bottle of water I brought with me, so I figured with the extra money Iâd saved by bringing my own calories, I would splurge on a sugary treat in the form of a diet soda. Just the week prior, I had discovered a room full of vending machines that had almost every single drink that I like. Armed with this craving and a pocket full of change, I proceeded to make the trek downstairs, to the right, down the hallway, to the room full of robots. I walk in and survey my options: ânope, no PepsiâŚno Coke todayâŚhmmm there it is â Diet Dr. Pepperâ. Having determined my choice, I take the fistful of quarters Iâd inadvertently attained that morning and insert the first one. A satisfying âca-chunkâ later, I was ready to insert the next one â one down, four more to go. I insert the next coin, and it happened.
                             That fân noise.
What is that fân noise? It's the noise the robot makes when, for whatever reason, it decides it does not want your money. Itâs the sound of your change going through the internal structure of the robots anatomy, only for it to piss it back at you at the bottom of its bowels through the return slot. Now, me being me, I figured I accidently put a penny in there or something. Reaching down, I slide my finger into the slot and fish out what appears to be a perfectly round, healthy US American quarter dollar. No, this canât be happening. Letâs try this again. Insert the quarter one more time and it happens again. Repeat. Again â same fân noise. I stare into the depths of the robots treasures and see those sugary bottles of bliss staring back at me in their comfortable habitat of chilled, 50 degree glory with nary a hint of care. âYOU WILL NOT DEFEAT MEâ, I utter to it, while looking around to make sure no passer-byers saw me talking to a vending machine. Time for another tactic. I reach into my pocket and pull out a single dollar bill and insert it into the dollar slot. Can you guess whatâs about to happen next?
Now there are only two options here â the robot takes the dollar in and gives me credit towards the sugar filled bottle of diabetes, or it does what most robots love to do, spit the bill back at you in the ultimate sign of mocking disobedience. If (and when) this happens to you in the future, before you pull your dollar bill completely out of the slot, take a step back and observe what this looks like â a giant robot sticking it's tongue out at you - with your own money. But I digress.
To my disbelief, the robot pulls my dollar in, thinks about it for 3-5 seconds, and to my astonishment, decides to keep it. Iâve never been so happy to have my money taken from me. Alright, one dollar and one quarter in equals $1.25âŚwe should be done. Keyword being should! With my mind clouded from the unfathomable event of the robot taking the dollar bill, Iâd forgotten about the accepted quarter and tried to insert another. I heard that fân noise at least 5 more times before I finally gave up. In my fit of rage, I decided to just start pushing the soda release key combinations for a diet Dr. Pepper in protest of Mr. Vending Robot toying with me. Then something disgustingly magical happened.
                              It worked.
The robot woke up, took its robot arm and started moving to grab my drink. I stood there, mouth gaping wide open in shock and disbelief and watched as the robot whirred and purred its way through the sequence of grabbing the bottle, lowering it to the bottom and politely placing it inside the receive slot for my easy access. As I stood there, lukewarm beverage in hand, utterly confused, all I could say to myself was âWHAT THE F JUST HAPPENEDâ??? Then, something else equally baffling happened â the robot made that fân sound again. Three times. âca-ching, ca-ching, ca-ching.â I reach down into the coin return slot to fish out three quarters. Something isnât adding up. By my account, I had only inserted one dollar. Sodaâs are $1.25âŚwhy was I receiving change? With a little bit more pondering, I remembered that I had indeed gotten the initial quarter accepted by Mr. Vending Robot. But, that still doesnât account for the seventy five cents I was holding in my hand. This didnât make sense. Why was the robot toying with me like this? What had I done to it? âWhy?â I kept repeating to myself, over and over again whilst simultaneously looking over my shoulder into the hallway to make sure no one saw me and concluded that I should be committed to a mental institution. Searching for answers, I looked back into the eyes of the robot, and happen to catch a glance of a message blink by on the robotâs LCD screen. In white font over the cool, ocean blue background, I read the message and couldnât believe my eyes. How could this be? How did this happen? The message read:
                            âPrice $0.25â
Yep, someone screwed up and lowered the price of every drink in the robot. Suffice to say, Iâm pretty sure that robot has gotten quite the workout today. Until we meet again robotâŚuntil we meet again.
Weâve come a long way in todayâs society when it comes to communication. Thereâs pretty much no limit to how we can find and talk to someone we want at any given moment, whether it be through email, SMS, or an online social network such as the now ubiquitous Facebook. Even though we have all those tools at our disposal, as a society our primary means of communication is still through the good olâ plain telephone. Despite the fact that all the other methods are arguably more efficient and non-arguably more convenient, we still have the tendency to pick up the phone, dial a number, wait for someone to answer, and then talk to someone whoâs probably taking a crap or cutting their toenails with their teeth. Yet, we still choose to partake in this rudimentary method of communication on a daily basis. However, there is a growing epidemic I feel obligated to bring to your attention. It is a phenomenon that has the potential to rip apart the petite string of fabric that separates sanity from insanity. Iâm talking about none other than this famous line:
âThank you for calling, please listen carefully, as our menu options have changed.âÂ
If youâve ever picked up a phone and called any medium to large size business, youâve heard this or a variation of this line many, many times before. I canât stress how insulting and infuriating this makes me. How come your menu options have ALWAYS changed? How long do you keep this message active on your Doofus-R-Us business line? What is the statute of limitations on the âalways have changedâ menu options that would predicate you removing the goddamn message so I didnât have to hear it every time I call your crappy telephone system because I actually want to TALK to someone about what is more than likely a problem on YOUR end that I need fixed. I donât care that your menu options have changed; I just need to speak to a representative. There is no standard here either â pressing â0â might take you directly to an operator, or it could put a hit squad out on your Grandmother⌠you never know. To make matters worse, most companies are moving away from the touch tone âPress 1 for X, press 2 for Yâ style of phone tag to actually asking you to SAY what you want. If you canât trust me to actually listen and press the right goddamn option number, what makes you think I believe your baby Skynet voice-recognition robot is actually going to accurately interpret what Iâm actually saying and place me in the correct queue? And DO NOT get me started on âPress 1 for English, 2 for EspanolââŚMy keyboard is already starting to smell like burnt flesh.
My solution is this - when I pick up the phone to call your business, just put me on the phone with a live operator from the jump. Donât make me play the âguess which one is whichâ game with your menu options or have to speak like a down syndrome patient to get your robot to understand me. I have other things to do.
Wait, I think Iâve found my new favorite worst website ever. âTo love, honor, and vacuumâ (I added in the Oxford comma) deals with pressing questions for modern Christian women, including:
Is it okay for Christians to use sex toys? (Answer: No. âMost guys arenât that big. And they canât vibrate like that. Do you really want to get reliant on something your husband can never be for an orgasm?â)
Whatâs a godly form of birth control? (Answer: the chart method. Keep a calendar, toss the condoms.)
What should I do if my husband wants to be adventurous in bed? (Answer: New positions are okay, but be careful! This desire for adventure might be enabling his porn addiction!)
What to do if Iâm too loose to have sex? (Answer: Buy Kegel exercisers on Amazon. But be careful to make sure you donât accidentally buy sex toys!)
You can read the whole hot mess and learn about how to correctly glorify god with your vagina here.
