From a Pacifier to an iPod

Need a pack of gum or a hot cup of coffee? Nothing’s easier than slipping your money into a vending machine—that is if it’s stocked and the coin slot’s functional.  Sandwiches, chips, candy—snacks and food are easy and quick.

So why not use them for more?

It's not like an employee who needs medical insurance or worker's comp, and never before have people been in such a hurry or have wanted so many things.  Now.  Yesterday.

Even Macy’s has joined the bandwagon.

A few years ago the retail giant got rid of its electronics departments and converted the space to vending machines that offered cameras, cell phones, iPods, and GPS’s.

People tried it and liked it.

Today Macy’s has four hundred E-Spots. The customers can’t touch the product or try it out, but using their smart phones, they can access the internet and look up the literature, or if they already know what they want, they can receive it in an instant.

Swipe that card and it’s yours.

What an idea, I thought, remembering the old vending machines my father used to have.

That was his business, setting up and servicing candy and coffee machines in gas stations, office buildings, and small factories in and around Detroit.

Gum was a penny, candy, a nickel a bar, coffee a dime, and cigarettes, always pricey, went for a quarter.

“How you going to make a living?” my grandfather had asked. “You can’t make nothing from a penny or two.”

But he did.

Yes, he struggled most of his life and was always on call.  In those days there were no answering machines, cell phones, and hiring an answering service wasn’t affordable.  So someone was always home to take an emergency.

The candy machine is jammed, someone just broke into the cigarettes, the coffee machine flooded  water all over the floor.

My father was late for his own father’s funeral--a pipe broke in the coffee again--but if he were alive today, what would he think of things now?

You can rent a car or a villa or a week’s vacation through a vending machine.   A piece of paper slides through the slot giving directions where to pick-up the vehicle or where to meet the group for the trip.

Got a baby and need supplies? There’s Baby Station Vend in the Kansas City and Dayton airports offering diapers, wipes, pacifiers, and formulas.  Even the navy’s selling uniforms through its vending machine at some of its stores.

(As an added safeguard to prevent losing big bucks, your credit card doesn’t activate until the product sits in your hands).

But no matter how far we’ve come, we still deal with the lowly candy bar.  If you pay for a sweet, and the machine suddenly jams, you still want to kick it and jog out your coin, and try your luck again.

To hell with the iPod or the Porsche for a Sunday drive.

When you’re hungry, and there’s no one around, you’d give anything for a taste of milk chocolate, a crunch of nuts, creamy caramel…

But like life itself, machines are a gamble.

And hey, that’s the fun of it.