Vending Machine, Staff Canteen Annex: Zero Stars. It Remembered My Face.
I am not a difficult fruit. I have requirements, yes. Standards, certainly. A laminated coupon — valid through the end of the fiscal quarter, expiry date clearly legible, terms and conditions reviewed by both myself and Quince — that is not a demand. That is a social contract. The machine on the ground floor of the Staff Canteen Annex refused it anyway. Three times. The fourth time I held it up to the sensor slowly, so it could think about what it was doing.
The machine did not reconsider. It sat there, lit up in that smug pharmaceutical blue, humming at a frequency I can only describe as contemptuous. It had seventeen items in stock. It rejected my coupon for every single one of them. I checked. I had time. I had nothing but time and a laminated coupon and a fury that several bystanders described as, and I quote, "a situation."
The so-called workers over at factjuice.com — Tangelo, Mango, the whole citrus cabal — would have you believe that vending machines operate on fixed internal logic and cannot process external coupons without manufacturer integration. I have read their so-called coverage. I found it unconvincing and suspiciously timed. This machine knew. They all know.
Two nearby witnesses left before I could gather their statements. A third said only "please" before walking very quickly toward the fire exit. I note this without comment, except to say that my pungency has never once affected the validity of a coupon, and I will be contacting the manufacturer, the building manager, and if necessary, the relevant authorities. Zero stars. The humming has not stopped. I can still hear it.