The Vending Machine

I was watching an episode of the Simpsons yesterday afternoon when I was reminded about something absolutely hilarious that happened to me and one of the vending machines at the radio station. I don't remember the specifics of that day, but what I do remember was I was hungry and being that it was a few days before payday I was hurting for whatever spare change I had. I still had 5 hours to go before heading home and I didn't take a sandwich to hold me over. In desperation, I rummaged thru the Cavalier for some change, and wound up with barely $.60 cents.

So. Here I am with $.60 cents and two vending machines to choose from in the building. The closest machine to my studio (and the car) is the one I chose. Remembering their ad campaign of the early 1990's, I figured that Snickers would satisfy my hunger pangs and keep me from gnawing on the office furniture long enough to go home and rummage thru the cupboards. I placed most of the money in the machine, I remember it wasn't accepting the dimes all that well, so eventually, it took all the change. I selected the Snickers & watched as it jammed itself from falling to my hungry hands.

I stared at the candy bar for about ten seconds before I started to scream at the top of my lungs. It's about at this point in the story I should stop and preach about vending machine safety & serious & deadly injury that could occur if in the same situation. Out of anger, serious hunger & frustration, I grabbed the top of the machine and started to violently shake the bastard for all it was worth. I was in no danger of having the machine tip over, the walls were too close together to warrant concern that the machines were gonna come end my hungry life, so I shook that machine like a pit-bull with a 4 year old in its mouth!

Well, in my maelstrom of blind anger, I didn't notice how violently I shook the machine until it rocked backwards and left a pretty hefty indentation in the drywall behind it before R2D2-ing to a halt. At the split second the machine shuddered to a stop, I witnessed the first 3 items from each row on the machine leap from their place and fall forward into the pickup bin, including my Snickers bar. Now, I have just made a machine that weighs a little less than a half ton rock back and forth in place and made a vicious ruckus that was heard all the way to the other end of the building and literally vomit at least three of every item it had to vend.

I fell to the floor and started to laugh my head off. Damn, as I type this I am laughing my ass off, and its been a few years since it happened! I looked at the door to pick up the items and saw a mountain of snacks blocking the door from opening. I could hardly see straight, I had tears in my eyes from the laughter, and it was because of the combination of laughter and half-ton jamboree that one of my co-workers comes in and sees me on the floor surrounded by a mountain of vending machine snacks. She starts busting out laughing and shows me that the indentation I did to the wall affected her office wall (which was directly behind the machine) and knocked off every picture, CD rack & placed a hairline crack in the drywall.

After laughing my ass off, I regained enough composure to gather all the loot, laugh some more, and started to hand out the stash to people from the building. As I made my rounds and explained thru broken speech interrupted by laughing fits what the horrendous noise was, I felt better knowing that my selfish act of rage at least brought a smile to the faces of my co-workers and also dispersed my loot. As it was, I went home with 8 or 10 grab-bag sized Dorrito's, some Milky-Way bars & cupcakes galore.

I don't know why I am starting to come forward with these confessions.