Vending machines just giggle

Vending machines hate me!

I realize I'm giving life and emotion to an inanimate object, but there's no other way for me to explain how it seems whenever I use a vending machine, it takes my money and withholds the purchased product.

It doesn't seem to matter if it's the cheese popcorn in the vending machine at the office that seems to work perfectly for everyone else but always jams and/or wedges the sack of popcorn between the glass and the spinner when I buy one, a soft drink vending machine in so-called Amish Country or a peanutbutter cracker vending machine along the Interstate in various states.

I've been cheated out of so much money and so many snacks from vending machines at rest areas along freeways that I must be just plain dumb to keep putting money in them in obviously mistaken expectation of getting product.

If I were a true fatalist, I would assume its some guiding hand that is keeping me from getting the snacks that surely couldn't be all that good for me, especially since I want them and obviously shouldn't have them.

But don't even think about filling out one of the "I had a problem" cards and dropping it in the appropriate box in the rest area or grabbing your cell phone and calling the service number because you might as well throw the card in the trash or call the President of the United States, the response would be the same ...nothing!

Heck, I don't even mind paying the inflated prices in the vending machines along freeways, if only they'd give me my peanutbutter crackers in return. But I guess the machines have a special code that recognizes me and laughs when I drop the money in the slot, giggling as it takes the money but keeps the crackers.