Ever since one of the capsule toy vending machines in the Currency Exchange by my old apartment offered the possibility of winning a laser pointer, it’s been hard for me to walk past a cluster of them without dropping some cash. Over the course of a year, I probably dumped 10 bucks into that darn thing, coming away instead with a seemingly endless supply of rubber balls and weird keychains that smelled like gasoline for some reason.
I would bounce the rubber balls onto the roof of the building immediately, then stare at the keychains with wonder and profound sadness, thinking about the children toiling away on the other side of the world to manufacture these hideous and smelly abominations, all the energy expended to transport them across the ocean and then carry them by truck to every nook and cranny throughout the country, eventually finding their way into a vending machine at a Currency Exchange by my apartment where I would waste my 50 cents (probably as much as the kid who made them earns in a day) on them, only to instantly chuck them into the trash because, you know – where the [expletive] is my laser pointer?
Which is all to say that it can be exceedingly difficult, frustrating, and expensive to get what you want out of a toy vending machine. You’re generally better off with the ones full of stickers that say things like “I (Heart) Chocolate!” or “I Go From Zero To [expletive] In 2.8 Seconds!” When we walked past a cluster of them last night in the foyer of a taqueria, I guess I wasn’t paying attention – I noticed the Homies ™ machine (not interested – it seems like I always get DevilDog), but I somehow missed the CSI one that Jo was freaking out about. It looked like mostly crime scene tape and fake moustaches, but Jo was intent.
She pumped in 50 cents, turned the crank, and got exactly what she wanted.
Evidence.
Me? I got a fake moustache, but whatever – getting evidence from a vending machine rules.
Ross Wolinsky is a local writer who singlehandedly writes and publishes the ‘zine “Hypocritical Mass” and its accompanying blog, hypocriticalmass.org.