Vending Vendetta

I've decided that vending machines are out to get me. Years ago I was caught by the CEO of the company for which I worked, in a twisted, stooped position, with my arm rammed up inside the office kitchen vending machine.

"It's really not how it.......looks?" I timidly stammered to big, handsome Mr. CEO in his three piece pinstriped suit.

He smiled and nodded his head, and I figured from that point on I was known as the girl from Payroll who couldn't afford her lunch and had to attempt to sever a limb by pilfering from the vending machine. Either that or he took me for an outright thief. In actuality I was simply trying to retrieve the Almond Joy for which the machine sucked up my money and refused to spit out the goods.

These days it seems that vending machines are either few and far between or contain a mix of items I'd never consider buying from a vending machine.....and definitely wouldn't consider eating.

What once was the simple way of procuring a candy bar or bag of chips now houses items like condoms. Are people's sex lives really so desperate and unplanned that they have to rely on a vending machine for birth control?

"Hang on, Honey......let me rummage through my pocket for change and run across the street to the bowling alley and buy a condom from the machine."

Huh?

And then there's cologne. You can buy it on a throwaway towel that is likened to that with which we clean baby's butts. Rub it across your face or on your wrists and you're sure to attract exactly what? I'd be a little more concerned that my verb was about to become "contract" rather than "attract."

The one that took the cake (but wouldn't even hear of dispensing one.........not even a little Ho-Ho or Suzy Q!) is one I ran across in Pennsylvania about a week ago. I saw the machine at what looked like a rest stop. With my change in hand and a big smile plastered across my junk food-deprived face I made a beeline for the vending contraption to find it offered---bait. Worms, dried fish and a couple of additional delectables rounded out the selections; all of which I turned down with disgust.

Probably some of you are thinking, "Why doesn't she just run inside a convenience store," and I know....I've considered that myself. But something about the mechanics of a vending machine has always intrigued my simple little mind. Just how does it know that I've inserted exactly $1.00 and that my Twinkie is 85 cents............and then for the love of Pete it throws back fifteen cents when I'm finished?

So no, I don't do convenience stores when there's the remote possibility of a vending machine treat within a ten mile radius. But they're becoming rarities. I'm told I'm a bit of a rarity, too, and definitely the minority where vending machines are concerned. If I decide to start up my own vending business it will be a haven for tacky delights I've secretly enjoyed for most of my life. And it won't have an condoms...... or bait......or smelly cologne!