Around the Vend

Over the years I’ve shared incidents students have had with the vending machines. They’ve ranged from money issues to practical jokes. Well, teachers aren’t immune to run-ins with the damn things. Most frustrations come from the unit in the teachers’ lounge, since it’s the one we go to most. I don’t know. We just don’t use the other ones because students can see us. Let’s face it; we don’t want the kids to know our choice of snack cake. The more personal things they know about you, the creepier things are. Or at the very least, it becomes a shift in power. That’s just another piece of information that they’ve got their jack-a-ninny hands on. Maybe that’s just me.

Anyway, where was I? Oh, the vending machine in the teachers’ lounge…

While trying to get one of those individual bags of microwave popcorn from the vending machine, a teacher shattered the glass. Evidently, she was doing her best impression of a rhino ramming a safari Jeep out in the Serengeti because the popcorn did not fall from its spiral dispenser thingy after she put in her money. The damage was so severe that she cut herself and a piece of black butcher paper has been used to cover the glass portion until repairs can be made.

I wonder if the snacks are still back there? Don’t tell me that teachers don’t have the potential for some vending machine looting. Just reach back there when no one is looking. With that paper there you would be long gone before anyone noticed.

I hope not because I have a really fun idea. We could wager on what we were buying. It would go like this: I would walk up and tell everyone that I was going to select G6 and then fellow teachers would place their bets on what it would be. A Payday? Snowballs? Peanut butter crackers? Everyone would frantically try to get their bets into the one teacher playing the role of the bookie until he shouted, “No more bets!”

Doesn’t that sound exciting? I think it would be a real morale builder, plus a chance to supplement our incomes.