Me v. Vending

Day 1: In need of caffeine, I visit vending machine #1, put in my $1.25, and press the button for a soda. Nothing happens. I press it again. Again, nothing. I press the change return button. Nada. So I smack the machine with the heel of my hand, and get one quarter back. I smack it again, and it reluctantly coughs up another quarter. Okay, fine then, deep breath. I will not do anything so undignified as to freak out on an inanimate object.

So I move on to vending machine #2 with my two quarters and another three gathered from my wallet. I put in my money, and...nothing. Screw dignity. I yell at the machine. I kick the machine. Still nothing. I kick it again, and it coughs up two quarters. &*#$^%^#&*%^#. While swearing at the machine, a friend walks by and gives me a dollar to stop me from further making a scene. I give the machine its money. It gives me a soda. Crisis averted.

Day 2: I need of caffeine, and wary of vending machine #1, I take my dollar directly to vending machine #2, since it did, eventually, give me a soda the other day. I give the machine its money and...nothing. I take a deep breath. I take the very last bit of change out of my wallet, and give it to the machine. I press the button again, and again. Still no soda. So, this time, after swearing at and kicking the machine, I decide that I'm not going to take it anymore.

Fed up, I march out of the lobby, across campus, and into card services. Card services, it appears, is not there today, but is in the new building across from the law school. Okay, fine, I'll walk back up across lower campus, in the 100 degree heat, for a couple of quarters. I get to building #2, hot and irritated, and walk into Card Services, where I wait for several minutes, resisting the urge to tap my foot, while Cranky Woman #1 talks to Cranky Woman #2. Finally, CW1 is finished, and asks me what I'd like. So I tell her the saga of the vending machines, and she snippily informs me that she can't give me my money back, because today they are doing ID cards only, and I will have to wait two more days for my $2.50. And fine, maybe I should just walk away, but dammit, I'm pissed off now, and I want my money back, and it's the principle of the thing. So I whine that this is the second day in a row that this has happened to me, and I prepare to huff my way out of the room. However, it would appear that CW1 has also had it up to here with vending, and tells me that she is sick of taking all of the grief for something that she has no control over, and she wants vending services out. Just my luck that I get the woman who wants to overthrow vending. So she picks up the phone, calls vending, and literally shoves the phone into my hand so that I can tell vending just how much their machines suck. Which I do, sort of, since at this point I'm mostly just confused and I just want to get my soda and go to class. And I hang up, and cranky woman thanks for me for helping her cause, and I go back to class, sodaless and moneyless, and a little befuddled, and it's two days later, and I still don't have my money, or my soda.

I guess you could say that vending won.