I wonder how many people go to great lengths to break into vending machines; not for the cash, but because a bum machine swindled them out of their rightfully bought property by refusing to give them what they paid for and then shamelessly mocked them by letting them look at it for as long as they want until they get into a nice long stew about it.
All I wanted was some Ramen. And because my hotel had Ramen in their previously non-offending vending machine, I thought I was in luck. Quick trip downstairs, bada bing bada boom, Ramen in my bowl. I should have known something terrible was going to happen the moment I looked down at those delicious freeze-dried noodles and saw that, ominously, they had no price tag or number. However, through the power of some impressive deductive reasoning, and by that I mean putting in quarter after quarter until the machine gave me some Ramen, I paid an exorbitant dollar seventy-five for one pack of chicken powder flavored Ramen noodles. Which, as everyone knows, goes for about nineteen cents at the grocery store. However, I knew when I got into this that I would be paying for convenience, so I grit my teeth and thought of England. But the real trial was still to come.
When I put in my next dollar seventy-five, the unthinkable happened. The wire circle cradling my beloved Ramen did not complete its resolution. There was my Ramen, sitting there, crying out to me, while its coiled prison did not let it escape. Without even a hope of knocking it loose, I stood at that moment at a crossroads. Another woman, a better woman, perhaps, would maybe have cut her losses at that point. Taken the one pack of Ramen, not a meal, certainly, but not nothing, either. I am not that woman. 

And let me take a moment here to point out that while not getting what you paid for out of a vending machine is an occurrence so ubiquitous that it has been commonly played for laughs in sitcoms and commercials for decades, this had never happened to me before. So not only was this sting of rejection cruel and biting, it was also fresh and completely unexpected.
Anyway, there I was with a choice ahead of me. Leave with my consolation prize or risk another precious dollar seventy-five on the off chance that it would leave me with two more Ramen. The greed and obstinance of my nature overtook me in a stubborn red haze. I put in my last dollar seventy-five.
The machinery clunked, metal ground against plastic, and the coil Did. Not. Turn.
So I did what any stubborn, red blooded American would do. After what seemed like eons of staring down the Vending Machine (who, in its cold indifference to justice, had gained the Upper Case of Evil), I stalked back upstairs in a silent rage, my lone pack of Ramen in my hand like a burning, bitter reminder of all I did not have, I got on the internet and looked up how to break into a vending machine.
What followed was an epic story involving two bags of Doritos, an apparent defiance of the laws of physics, and the ultimate failure of cheating the Vending Machine that still ended with a rightfully paid for two bags of Doritos. But that is a story for another time. For now, I'll leave you with this.
When I stared into that Vending Machine, I saw the cold, blind, and unfeeling soul of The Machine itself. The one that allows us to communicate and travel across vast distances. The one that keeps our streets from dissolving into chaos. The one that feeds us with snack foods. The one that keeps us In Line. And let me tell you something right now. When that Machine decides our time is up? We will lose.
But maybe if we do what we're told we'll get some Doritos.