My roommate fills vending machines part-time on the side, and he is stoned approximately 99% of the time. He steals munchies all the time, too. Just a data point that might help explain the problem!
He knows you like orange! It will always give you lemon lime.
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So, uh… what did he do? Buying a Snickers t gave you a crappy Three Musketeers, huh?
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“Rape” back in those times (the Roman times, not sure about 17th century Netherlands) meant “take away.” Let’s be realistic, it probably also involved modern rape, but not necessarily.
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Did anyone else get the vibe of, “Today we salute you, Mr. Incompetent Vending Machine Filling Guy”?
This is a pitting I can get behind. Good job Man With a Cat.
My employer changed vendors a few years back, so the vending machine status has improved quite a bit. Prior to that, it was horrific.
I often worked in a remote building, about a mile away from the main complex. I work a lot of odd hours; sometimes through the night and sometimes the hours were not planned in advance. So, I was somewhat dependent on the vending machines.
The machine that had snacks - the entire bottom row was always, ALWAYS, filled with saltine crackers.
Another machine was refrigerated and had salads in little bowls. That’s the only time I’ve every gotten food poisoning from a salad. They had little colored tags under the celophane that indicated that date on which they were made. I walked in one afternoon as the vendor was filling it - he was lifting the celophane and switching out the date tags. We was apparently bringing the out-of-date ones from the main building out to the remote building and switching the tags. That was after my food poisoning, so I wasn’t about to eat one again anyway.
Any of the manufactured snacks, candy bars, etc. were always out of date. I suspect the vendor bought them that way from some other supplier. Occasionally, you would get something that had a little hole chewed in the corner by some unknown rodent.
When I started here, they had soda and coffee dispensing machines. On the best day, the coffee was worse than any other I’ve ever had. If you were unfortunate enough to get a cup right after they cleaned the machine, you got coffee and cleaner in the same cup.
The machine also dispensed “Soup - Chicken Flavored”.
Next week’s Headline -
MAN (with a Cat) ATTACKS VENDING MACHINE
A man was taken into custody yesterday and processed for Psychiatric evaluation after he attacked a vending machine at his workplace.
The man was heard muttering as he was led away,“I waited two weeks for the imbecile to load Diet Coke. He finally did!”
A witness said that the man put money in the machine, it made a whirring noise, then…nothing. He tried again. Nothing. Six more times the man put money into the machine. Still nothing. That’s when he grabbed a fire extinguisher and started beating the machine with it.
Those machines also would dispense hot chocolate. My sister and I used to call it choco-chicken, if you got a cup after someone had “soup”.
For the record, the French are mostly quite good at war. They’ve just been in a slump lately.
Yes, they did. I don’t remember anyone ever buying the soup. I would sometimes get hot chocolate because the coffee was so bad. I couldn’t figure out how you can make coffee weak and bitter at the same time. Many years later, I figured it out when I ran out of coffee down at the farm and I reused the grounds to make a second pot. I got the exact same flavor that I used to get out of those machines.
The soda machines - sometimes you got ice and no soda. Sometimes you got syrup and no water. Sometimes you got ice and carbonated water but no syrup. Sometimes the ice would not stop coming out and it would spill all over the floor.
Now, we have can dispensing machines - at $1.00 a can.
That was truly lovely. I am in the last stages of a cold, and I was fine at the beginning, when I was only snickering. Then you kept building, and I moved on to snorting, which led to coughing. You continued along the waves of a rising crescendo, and the coughing became ever more painful, but I just couldn’t stop reading. Bravo, maestro!
::giggle::
::coughcoughCOUGHCOUGHHACKGASPWHEEZEcough::
Yeah, there are places where you can buy food with expired dates on it. My mother-in-law was very fond of one place in this city that had this stuff. I would buy non-perishable goods at that place, but never any food items. They’re called salvage grocers, and they are just the place to go when you MUST have some Mellow Yellow sodas, or botulism laced chili.
Perhaps I missed it, but can we get why he sucks so much in addition to the ranting?
Or is it just the lack of Diet Coke 
Good post up until Diet Coke. Now, you deserve all your troubles. Get the real deal.
That’s okay, there’s a guy who fills it. He should be here any minute.
This.
But only the Classic – not that New Coke crap!
Do they even make New Coke anymore?
OP, thank you. I’m having a very difficult day, and this made me laugh.
Diet Coke is swill. Vending machine guy is doing you a solid.
At least drink Coke Zero (or Pepsi Max); I’d agree with the depth of your wrath then.
Last week, having forgotten to bring in my own cans of Cherry Coke Zero, I bought a bottle of Diet Pepsi from the machine. Started drinking and thought 'This tastes odd. Smells odd too." Kinda plasticy. Second mouthful and I started getting a huge headache. Dumped it, then went for a walk down the street to buy some CCZ.
Next day I buy a bottle of Diet Mountain Dew. Can immediately smell it, and my brain makes the connection. The bottle smells like motherfucking LATEX. Now I only have a minor allergy to latex*, but I can only imagine how badly someone with a full blown allergy would react. And certainly you would never expect a vending machine soda to have latex all over the bottle. I have no idea how that would even happen.
Thoroughly washed off the bottle (with soap!) and then tasted it carefully. Didn’t taste latex, didn’t get a headache. Can only assume the previous day’s reaction was to the smell making me think the stuff tasted like that too.
Have sworn off buying anything from that machine ever again.
The candy/chip machine on the other hand, I’ll keep buying stuff from. They put drop sensors in it. If what you purchase doesn’t fall, it pushes out the next one and you get 2 for 1. Once I got 3 for 1.
- How I found out is a little TMI. There’s a certain product for men usually made from it.
In his off hours this guy must have part time work NOT filling all the Star Tribune newspaper machines within 10 miles of me.