What were the odds?

The other night at work I decided to buy something out of one of the vending machines. I don't do this very often because 1) Their prices are way too high and 2) It's junk food that I shouldn't be eating anyway. However, if I have been having an extremely rough night, sometimes I will 'treat' myself to a goodie from the machine.

All I had were dollar bills, but the machine accepts those. After looking over many less-than-tempting items, I decided to get the package of two Reese's peanut butter cups. I slipped my dollar in, punched the appropriate buttons, and watched the little bar turn to release my cups. Only it didn't! The edge of the package caught on the rotating bar and it didn't fall.

I tried banging on the machine, but I'm not very strong and the machine didn't budge an inch. 'OK', I thought, 'I'll buy a second one for tomorrow night'. So in went another dollar, and the bar did it's little spiral thing. The first set of cups fell quite satisfactorily, but the second one stuck. I couldn't believe it!

Well, they say the third time is the charm, so I reluctantly slid in another dollar and watched the same performance all over again - right down to the last set of peanut butter cups not falling. By now I had decided that the vending machine people had set this up! I had put in three dollars and only received two products.

Feeling extremely frustrated, my eye was caught by a bag of Doritos up on the top row. 'Just the thing for the drive home in the morning' was my thought. When I'm really tired, eating is the only thing that will keep me awake (no wonder I look the way I do!). So in went another dollar, and I'll be darned if the Dorito's didn't fall against the glass in such a way that they didn't fall down. Now I had TWO items that I had paid for that were still up inside the bowels of the machine.

By now my mutterings had attracted attention from a couple in the break room, and the male half came over to use his macho power to save the day. He banged and pushed and shoved, but nothing happened. Being a glutton for punishment, I put in ANOTHER dollar bill and pushed the Dorita chips button. Down came the first bag, but the second one stuck. This was beginning to remind me of a farce.

Macho Man did his thing again, and finally (finally!) the second bag of chips fell down. However, it was obvious that the peanut butter cups weren't going to budge. His better half innocently suggested that maybe I should buy another set of peanut butter cups to make it fall (duh - why didn't I think of that?). She obviously didn't notice that there were already two sets of peanut butter cups down in the bottom of the machine waiting for me to retrieve them.

However, I didn't want to seem churlish, and they had helped me get my second bag of chips, so in went another dollar, another rotation, and to my astonishment and amazement, both sets of peanut butter cups made an awkward tumble out of their wombs and fell. I had succeeded!

When I opened up the bottom of the machine to retrieve all my loot (two bags of chips and FOUR sets of peanut butter cups) I discovered there was also a package of beef sausages there. Apparently it had been stuck from an earlier purchase by somebody else, and came loose when the machine was being banged around to get my chips.

However, the glee that one usually feels when one gets something totally free was a bit tarnished by the fact that I had just sacrificed 6 of my dollar bills to get 2 items that I wanted - and at an exorbitant price. Personally, I think the vending machine company won. I wonder if those things stick on purpose . . .