My joints feel weak - more like rubber than bone as I finish my latest P.E. session and walk to Uni. As I slowly make my way to the vending machine (the one with food), I take out a wrinkled dollar bill and insert it; the vending machine is unresponsive. There's not even a blinking red light to tell me I'm doing something wrong or a taped note; the vending machine is giving me the silent treatment. I repeat the process six times, and in frustration, I take out a different dollar bill. I'm late to class, but unfortunately, a rebellious vending machine is no excuse.
The irony is that the campus invested money to install credit card readers on vending machines when the dollar bill mechanism doesn't even work. Unless Uni students "borrow" their parents' credit cards, those credit card readers have seen less action than students at Uni dances (so I'm told). I appreciate the credit card readers for their conveniency, especially since I unwittingly take currency out of the economy whenever I lose the 15 cents the vending machine gives back to me. However, there are simpler problems to solve: the vending machines aren't evenly distributed at Uni.
There are three vending machines with beverages and only one vending machine that sells food, and the food vendine machine stopped accepting dollar bills. I visit the food vending machine about twice as much as the beverage vending machines, especially because water (from water fountains at least) is free and (in my opinion) preferable to soda and vitamin water. And who doesn't like getting two sausage sticks for the price of one (the second sausage stick sometimes slips past its holder)? It's not luck; it's skill.
