I got a free soda!

Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Share (MPSIMS)
#1

I heard about this from a coworker but I didn’t believe it, until it happened to me. The vending maching in our lunch room gives out free sodas. The machine is also tempramental, the bottom four buttons won’t function at all if the front isn’t closed just right after being restocked. One of those four is Diet Pepsi, which I prefer over the rest. Lately, I’ve taken to depositing a nickel or dime and pressing the Diet Pepsi button to see if it functions. If it does function, the readout will display what would cost to get me one (.65). If not, the display will continue to show what I deposited. If it’s the latter, there’s a good chance that pressing the Diet Pepsi button after .65 or more is deposited will result in a Mountain Dew. I despise Mountain Dew!

If it’s not the bottom four buttons not registering, it’s the Mountain Dew button sticking, which results in a Mountain Dew dropping as soon as .65 or more is deposited. It’s easy to tell when the button is sticking, the decimal point flashes when no money is deposited and .65 flashes if anything less than that is deposited. Whenever I’m in the lunch room and I see that display flashing, I give the Mountain Dew button a sharp whack to dislodge it.

When I needed a snack this afternoon, I put in a dime, pressed the Diet Pepsi button, and the display stayed on .10. Needing my quarters for laundry, I put in a dollar and pressed Pepsi. I got two Pepsis and .45 in change! Just like my coworker said happened to him. I probably should report this trick to someone, I’ve been trying to get this machine replaced with one that works without the malfunctioning buttons needing service every other day and this ought to be just what I need.

#2

That’s cool! I once got 3 Fruitopias and a Coke from a pop machine after I’d put in a dollar to try and get an iced tea. I didn’t complain - I like Fruitopia too! Though I did still kind of want my iced tea. That machine at school was fairly well known for giving up free drinks when you hit the iced-tea button, but it appeared to be a gamble as to what you would get, and how many. AFAIK, I still have the record of 4!

#3

Soda machines rock.

I love the soda machines at school. I like Fanta, and although there wasn’t a button for Fanta, if you hit the Dasani Water button you would get either an orange or a grape Fanta! In the Osco near the school, if you hit the Dasani button, you’d get root beer, which was also not an actual option.

One of them gave out 2-3 drinks per 50 cents deposited for about a week, before it was fixed. That was great.

And at my brother’s middle school, several of the machines malfunction, giving you more drinks if you hit the button more than once before the first one drops. They’re probably fixing it over summer vacation.

And, this was just a fluke but last week, at the dorms I stayed at during Girls State, I deposited a dime and got my $1.25 drink and the dime back. Too bad all they had available was cranberry juice. After that fluke, it reverted to its evil ways–taking five quarters and saying it was a buck, taking two dollars and claiming it was one dollar, and not giving any change back whatsoever. Evil.