Most of the times I’ve used a vending machine, I haven’t encountered any trouble at all. Yesterday was different. I deposited three quarters and selected E6. So far, so good. The metal coil that held my candy bar captive spun slowly but surely, in the process moving my sugary confection closer to the clear plastic I am probably meant to assume is glass. Just as it was about to reach the precipice and tumble to the bottom of the machine, into the reach of my grubby paws, the turning stopped.
I had been listening for the familiar thunk of a heavy bar of chocolate landing from a fall of several feet. That thunk never came. I gazed into the bowels of what I was just beginning to recognize as a malevolent piece of automation, and saw my tasty snack leaning towards me, but firmly lodged in the clutches of that metal coil.
I tried a few experimental nudges of the machine (from a running start) but to no avail. I resigned myself to drawing three more quarters from my pocket and inserting them into this tyrannical box that tempted me with attractively displayed packages of fat and sugar only to deny me their procurement.
It was then I noticed the display on the machine was showing I had a credit of $.75. In light of the fact that I selected E6 and watched that damnable metal coil turn, this simply didn’t make sense. Digging through the folds of my memory, though, there had only been silence after I made my selection. While I didn’t hear the satisfying landing of my tasty treat in the hand-accessible bin, I also didn’t hear the soul-crushing landing of my precious quarters coming to rest in the quarter-laden bowels of my insatiable antagonist.
I can only conclude that someone had dreamed up the rational and intoxicating idea of installing a sensor in the bottom receptacle of the machine. If this sensor isn’t triggered, then my credit remains, unsullied. Is a scale busily counting ounces when individually wrapped morsels of food drop to that weigh station on the road to immaculate consumption? Perhaps a light beam is broken? It doesn’t really matter. What matters is I received my candy bar in accordance with the unspoken agreement between that vending machine and I that the price label it presented for item E6 was something more than mere decoration. It was a declaration. We had entered into a covenant that I could distort my blood sugar, possibly adversely affecting my dinner, for $.75. No more. No less.
Vending Machine in the Stairwell Nearest My Cubicle, I salute you.
November 24th, 2006 at 5:02 pm
so based on the weight sensor at the bottom, if made a little net. put it in the bottom of the machine before u buy ur candy, then u could keep on buying until the net break?
this sounds like a good plan, just need to find an isolateded machine hmm