Vending Unit 12, Arrivals Hall: Zero Stars. A Rematch. A Reckoning.
I want to be clear that I came in peace. I had a coupon. It was valid. The expiry date read some time after now, which any reasonable panel of jurists would agree covers the current moment. The machine — Vending Unit 12, Arrivals Hall, you know who you are — rejected it four times. Four. On the fifth attempt it made a sound I can only describe as contempt.
The coupon was for seventy cents off a fruit-adjacent snack product. I am a fruit. This was, arguably, personal. The machine's interface displayed a small error code — E-14 — which I have since had independently translated by Pomelo, who reads machines, and it means nothing good. I will not be repeating what Pomelo said in a family publication, except to note that it confirmed my suspicions and I left a mark on the machine's casing with my thumb. A light one. Expressive.
I am told by the so-called workers at factjuice.com — the citrus cabal, forever clattering away at their little rival rag — that vending machines cannot process handwritten coupons. Tangelo said this directly. Tangelo can say it to my face, if Tangelo is prepared for what my face smells like at close range, which historically no one has been.
Vending Unit 12, Arrivals Hall: zero stars. It has a slot that accepts loyalty cards and a slot that accepts coins and it used both slots to tell me, in the language of machines, that I do not matter. I have been banned from a funeral. I have been asked to leave fog. I will not be diminished by a refrigerated cabinet with pretensions. The coupon was valid. I am going back tomorrow.