I do not have a good relationship with vending machines.
Now, I’m not going to overreact and say that I “hate” vending machines. Hate is such a strong word. Rather, I’d 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 doesn’t 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 don’t know. Maybe I’ll 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. I’m 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 didn’t want to drink the bottle of water I brought with me, so I figured with the extra money I’d 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: “nope, no Pepsi…no Coke today…hmmm there it is – Diet Dr. Pepper”. Having determined my choice, I take the fistful of quarters I’d inadvertently attained that morning and insert the first one. A satisfying “ca-chunk” later, I was ready to insert the next one – one down, four more to go. I insert the next coin, and it happened.
That f’n noise.
What is that f’n noise? It's the noise the robot makes when, for whatever reason, it decides it does not want your money. It’s 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 can’t be happening. Let’s try this again. Insert the quarter one more time and it happens again. Repeat. Again – same f’n 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. “YOU WILL NOT DEFEAT ME”, 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 what’s about to happen next?
Now there are only two options here – 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 – 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. I’ve never been so happy to have my money taken from me. Alright, one dollar and one quarter in equals $1.25…we should be done. Keyword being should! With my mind clouded from the unfathomable event of the robot taking the dollar bill, I’d forgotten about the accepted quarter and tried to insert another. I heard that f’n 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 “WHAT THE F JUST HAPPENED”??? Then, something else equally baffling happened – the robot made that f’n sound again. Three times. “ca-ching, ca-ching, ca-ching.” I reach down into the coin return slot to fish out three quarters. Something isn’t adding up. By my account, I had only inserted one dollar. Soda’s are $1.25…why 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 doesn’t account for the seventy five cents I was holding in my hand. This didn’t make sense. Why was the robot toying with me like this? What had I done to it? “Why?” 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 robot’s LCD screen. In white font over the cool, ocean blue background, I read the message and couldn’t believe my eyes. How could this be? How did this happen? The message read:
“Price $0.25”
Yep, someone screwed up and lowered the price of every drink in the robot. Suffice to say, I’m pretty sure that robot has gotten quite the workout today. Until we meet again robot…until we meet again.
