Herculean Effort Needed to Obtain Vending Machine Soda

I was working in the Richmond Federal Building the other day and really wanted a soda with lunch. I went to the ground floor and was pleasantly surprised to find four new vending machines. Fun! These technological wonders have far more choices and even allow you to pay by phone. I guess putting a dollar in the machine and hitting a button isn't exciting enough nowadays. #Millennials

Oddly, the new machines don't list prices underneath the items. Is this one of those "if you have to ask, you can't afford it" situations, like buying a yacht? When you enter the product number on the touch pad, it then flashes the price on the screen.

It turns out that a soda costs $1.55 when paying with cash and $1.65 with a credit card. What offends me most about this is not the extra dime for the credit card, but rather, the oddly specific cash price. $1.50 was too low, but $1.75 prices people out of the market? What committee was behind this trainwreck?

I am paying with cash, so I put a dollar bill in the soda machine. Well, I tried to put a dollar bill in the machine. It's not that the machine was rejecting it. No, there must have been something wrong with the sensor because it wasn't even trying to take my dollar. 

No worries - I decided to get a soda out of the other machine. Same problem! The second soda machine also wouldn't recognize my dollar. I made sure it was lined up exactly like the diagram; I even tried putting it in backwards, upside down, etc. No dice.

The scene of the crime.

Alright, soda machines, you wanna play hardball? Let's play hardball. I take a dollar and put it in the snack machine (whose dollar bill sensor was working just fine). After getting a $1 credit, I immediately cancelled the order, and as luck would have it, the machine spit back four quarters. Excellent! I did this again with a second dollar. Now, I have eight quarters in my hand and can finally get my soda.

I put seven quarters in the soda machine and hit the product number. Then, the message "Use exact change - item not dispensed" came up on the screen. What the heck?? I know that I am not using exact change, but I am putting in more than the required amount. I don't even want change back. Just dispense the cola!

At this point, I was tempted to use my credit card. However, I didn't trust that the machine would take my card (it would probably skim the number and immediately sell my personal information on the Dark Web), and now I wanted the 10 cent discount just out of principle.

I reached into my pocket and had some change from a coffee purchase earlier that morning. I had...two dimes and two pennies. So, with eight quarters, two dimes, and two pennies, I literally could not make exactly $1.55.

I looked through the snack machines and found animal crackers for $1.35. I put in a new dollar, along with two quarters. Now, the machine was forced to give me a dime and a nickel back in change. I heard the dime and nickel clank down out of the machine, and I was set.

At this point, I put six quarters and my newly-acquired nickel into the soda machine and finally bought a drink.

The snack purchased simply to obtain a nickel.

Here's a fun fact about the animal crackers: The nutrition information says that there are "about two" servings in the package. They list one serving as 130 calories, but the entire package is 240 calories. How?? Why wouldn't you say that there are "about two" servings and that each one is 120 calories? Is the second serving supposed to have one fewer cracker?

Blessings to the soda machines for making me go through Rube Goldberg contortions to obtain my soda. And congratulations to the soda machine in the parking garage stairway, which just earned my business going forward!

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