Vending Machine, Third Floor Corridor: Zero Stars. It Knew About the Coupon.
I arrived with documentation. I want to be clear about this. I did not arrive empty-handed, winging it, hoping for the best like some citrus cabal intern chasing a quote. I had a coupon. Laminated. Dated. Entirely legitimate. The machine knew this and rejected it anyway.
The screen said INVALID. The machine said nothing else, because machines are cowards. It simply sat there, humming at a frequency I can only describe as smug, its selection of corn-based snacks lit up behind glass like a shrine to its own refusal. I tried the coupon four times. I tried it upside down. I tried it with confidence. I tried it with patience, a resource I have famously very little of and was now depleting on a beige appliance in a corridor that smelled of carpet.
My colleague Pomelo has suggested I "let this one go." Pomelo also once gave three stars to a revolving door, so I think we know where his critical faculties have ended up. Quince simply asked if I'd tried flattening the coupon first. I had. I had flattened it against my knee for ninety seconds. The machine was unmoved.
What particularly offends me — professionally, morally, and as a fruit of standing — is that this machine accepts student discount cards. Student discount cards. It will bend its principles for a laminated rectangle issued by an institution that still teaches people to make vision boards, but it will not honour a coupon I personally clipped, carried, and presented in good faith. I note that the so-called workers over at factjuice.com would probably call this "a minor inconvenience." Tangelo, specifically, would say that. Tangelo has never had a coupon in his life and it shows.
The machine remains in the corridor. It is still humming. I have filed a formal complaint with a person I invented for the purpose. Zero stars. It knew about the coupon before I arrived.