POP

If I fail at everything else in my life, I'll always be able to say I knew my way around a pop machine.
"Pop machine?" You ask.
"YES!!! A pop machine!!! I love them. When I see them, my heart beats faster."

But there's this one pop machine lately that has really been testing me. I can't work her out. She eats my money. She eats it twice a week. I've tried chatting with her, telling her jokes, not talking at all, tickling her, or not looking at her directly in case she's the shy type.

But she just won't give in to me. She won't give me the trick to getting my pop every day, every time. If she keeps it up, I may have to call her mother. By mother, I mean the phone number that is listed on her front.

Pop machines. They inexplicably make me nostalgic. They remind me of being 12 and not being allowed to drink pop so my sister and I would ride our bikes to the grocery store and spend 40 cents (YEAH, I SAID 40 CENTS) on a pepsi and then ride our bikes home and hide the cans down our pants, cringing and screeching at how cold they were against our skin as we crept back up to our rooms. If upon our arrival, our mom couldn't be avoided, one person would hide both cans in her pants while the other created a diversion. Sitting her thinking about it, I miss my sister more than ever. I also miss 40 cent pops.

I love pop machines. I worship them. I am a slave to their ability to provide my drug at a moment's notice. But they can break your heart. The cruel words, "sold out." The moment after you insert your dollar and you don't hear that satisfying click and you know your dollar is gone forever. The moment when you realize you are a nickel short. Oh yes, they can break your heart. And they'll do it just to remind you that they are in charge. Or something.

In other news, everyone here calls it soda and I hate it. I find it offensive.