Tuesday, June 15, 2004
Combos Really Cheese Your Hunger Away
Vending machines are evil. How else can you explain their hold on office workers throughout the world? How else can you explain how millions upon millions mindlessly shovel coins into the dispenser slot for a bag of potato chips?
I like to think that I follow a pretty healthy diet these days. When I’m at home, I very rarely snack on the usual suspects. We don’t really keep potato chips around the house. For the most part, our extracurricular eating consists of granola bars, Triscuits and at worst, tortilla chips. We keep soda pop on hand for guests, but only occasionally drink it ourselves. Heck, the bottle of vodka gets pulled out for White Russians more frequently than any Coca-Cola product.
But yet, when I come in to work, somehow I will find myself feeding the machine with a dollar or two to get a bottle of Cherry Coke and some Munchos. I just don’t get it. Is it because I’m stressed or bored and need “comfort” food? Is it peer pressure?
Maybe it’s the presentation. Maybe it’s the delivery method. You know…the ones that turn the little corkscrews to push the bag of the edge of the shelf so that it drops into the bin below. You start wondering which snack food (and I use the term “food” loosely) is going to fall the fastest. Or how about the drink machines that have the little elevator that safely brings your drink down from heights that would easily shatter a soda pop bottle. And then there’s the ice cream machines that open up the individual little coolers and send in an arm with a vacuum nozzle to pick up the popsicle and drop it in the aforementioned bin. They’re like Rube Goldberg machines. Isn’t it worth the extra profit margin you give up willingly to see technology at work?
But what if it doesn’t work? Because you know that in reality, you’re taking part in a form of gambling. What if your bag of chips gets stuck on the way down, or your soda pop bottle breaks, or the vacu-suck arm doesn’t work. You’re betting $0.65 that something will not go wrong, and the reward is akin to a package of 4 week old Hostess Sno-balls!
What is wrong with us?!?! Why are we slaves to these machines? And more puzzlingly, why do we try to force it to take our dollar bills when it obviously doesn’t want to take our money? Take your dollar bill and go home! You’ll be that much healthier, that much lighter, and that much richer!
Well, now that I’ve gotten that out of my system, I’m kind of hungry. I’m going to go to the vending room and get a chocolate bar.
