On the one hand, we live charmed and uncommon lives in the scheme of things, ones in which we have ready access to many relative luxuries, including food, at nearly every turn. There is simply no reason to complain.
On the other hand.
The vending machine represents an invention, and by extension an industry, which has a staggering failure rate; I'm shocked HBO or Netflix or Tubi or the company who makes my dishwasher has not done an exposé on this - if anyone has contacts with any content providers, this issue sells itself, and I'll split the profits with you 30-70-0 (30% to you, 70% to my wife, 0% to me).
In my lifetime, I would estimate that at least one out of every five times I've tried to use a vending machine, it hasn't gone well. Either it decides to keep the money, as if my sixty-five cents dollar seventy-five never existed, or it makes a half-hearted attempt to release the snack I've paid for only to hang onto it at the last minute, either by turning that metal corkscrew a fraction of an centimeter too little (well played), or by dropping my candy bar directly onto a bag of Grippos that the vending-guy had no business trying to squeeze into the rack (polish off your resumé).
Listen: I know this is nothing new, and is fodder for nearly every show or movie with a scene in an hospital or office building or shady gas station parking lot with poor neon lighting and a eternally-out-of-order restroom and serial killers loitering around on their break.
But I propose that is precisely the point: for years and years we as a society have known that these machines of supposed convenience are faulty. And yet, they still, despite technological advances, have a fail rate that would shut down other industries or at least bring them under the purview of a bloated government agency with the requisite 3-letter acronym (VMB?).
Let’s get down to the Zagnut bar of this whole thing: the SOLE purpose of vending machines, and thus the vending industry, is to deliver a snack and/or drink to hungry/thirsty/bored/stoned patrons for a clearly-agreed-upon price. It's a simple transaction, the ONLY transaction their business model is based upon.
Let me say that again in a more direct and condescending way: this is ALL they do, trading snacks and drinks for hard currency (or scanned digital coinage).
Yet, for decades, perhaps even half-centuries, this industry has not been able to achieve better than an 20% (purely anecdotal) success rate. By contrast, my kids, who I must remind you are children, have in the past sold candy bars for fund raisers (an activity I like to call "pretty darn close to hell on earth"), and I have not once observed them take a person's dollar and then immediately be physically unable to hand over the candy bar.
Am I suggesting that a person should be stationed in my workplace's kitchenette on standby to hand me a bag of spicy peanuts in exchange for seven dimes and an errant Canadian penny?
Maybe I am.
I'll leave you with this: If this were happening in any other industry, say real estate, it would be a worldwide crisis and an outcry would ensue: "Well, honey, I don’t know what else I can tell you. They cashed our down payment check, but apparently they are keeping our house. No, no, I can see it right there! But unless we are going to try to get a second loan to see if we can dislodge the house we paid for, I guess someone else will get it. Yes, of course I shook it! It ain't going nowhere.
“Oh, I'm leaving a note! They will be hearing from my note!"
We can do better.
Thanks as always for reading! Wishing you a day with a high success rate of getting that honeybun you’ve had your eye on.
Sounds like somebody has a case of the Mondays. In all seriousness, financial gurus are forever hawking owning a vending machine as a great “passive” income stream… your piece made me realize why. Almost pure profit!
Brilliant new way to laugh at this topic. And I mean laugh out loud.