Feeling: silly
Listening to: singing "Puff the Magic Dragon"
Reading/Watching: filling the Desmond journal... haven't written in it in over a year, it's time for some updates

My first experience with a coffee vending machine was when I was nine and saw the scene in Terminator 2 where that night watchman got a cup of coffee just before the T-1000 went all shish-kebab with his eyeball. I thought it was so cool and silly that the coffee cup had playing cards printed on it, and I wondered whether there were ever cups with things like royal straight flushes, and whether people collected them (yes, that is what I took away from that movie).

Then, in a hospital waiting room my freshman year in college, I saw one of those machines, where you push the buttons to select your coffee type, and the little cup shoots out and gets filled with liquid in about six seconds, and since a cup of coffee cost a quarter, I figured it had to be the most digusting coffee ever. I had a strange urge to buy some just to find out how horrible it was, but alas alas, I had ridden in the ambulance without bringing my wallet, and had no quarter.

I was strangely thrilled to realize that there was one of those machines at Info (they all look so ancient next to the new shiny machines that sell sandwiches and ice cream bars, by the way, have I mentioned that the vending machines there sell everything? There's fruit and sandwiches and SlimFast and ice cream and burritos and No-Doz and Midol and egg rolls and cups of microwave-able soup), and I would spend my fifteen-minute breaks studying all the coffee options, and wondering exactly what substances were used if you pushed the "extra white" or "extra sugar" options. There was no way actual granules of sugar were sifted in there, since they couldn't be stirred in the six seconds it takes to fill the cup, and the concept of the word "white" instead of "cream" or "milk" was repellent in and of itself. I was also fascinated with the fact that they offered "mocha" and "sanka" without any explanation of what they were, and I tried several times to guess what exactly "sanka" is (other than the name of one of the Jamaican bobsledders in Cool Runnings.)

To end the suspense, which I'm sure is killing you, today I actually spent money on getting a 6-second cup of "sanka" (the price has gone up to 35 cents now, damn George Bush) with extra sugar and extra white.

The little cup popped down the chute, held in place by metal panels, and in six seconds, the tiny red "coffee brewing" light went off, and I pulled out my half-ounce of mystery beverage, which looked muddy and entirely inexplicable.

One swallow, and I had scorched my tongue, spilled coffee on my blouse, and reduced my taste buds to cringing hostages inside my mouth. I immediately dumped the remainder of the coffee in the trash can, saying, "Holy crap that's nasty."

My cup had a nine of spades, a two of diamonds, an eight of diamonds, and a pair of red queens. The "wild" card printed on the bottom was a ten of clubs. I laughed when I read "Caution: full of hot liquid" on the side of the cup. I could just imagine some dingleberry getting the cup and immediately turning it over to check the bottom.

The machine also offers cocoa and hot soup (described as "chicken flavored", shudder), but I decided to save those adventures for another day.

One could say it's a waste of money, but hey... some people spend $1.25 to prank call Information, so at least my dumb hobby is cheaper.

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