Vending Unit 14, North Vestibule: Zero Stars. It Has Met My Lawyer.
I did not come here to be humiliated. I came here with a coupon — a legitimate, laminated, hand-dated coupon issued under the full authority of my own kitchen table — and Vending Unit 14 looked at it through its little slot and said, in the language of machines, no.
The slot itself was an insult. Narrow. Judgmental. It accepted a dollar bill without hesitation, practically hungry for it, but the coupon — the coupon it returned with the mechanical indifference of a bureaucrat who has read the law and chosen evil. I tried it twice. I tried it upside down. The unit blinked at me. It has been trained.
The selection was characteristically bleak: nine varieties of corn-based despair arranged behind scratched perspex like criminals awaiting sentencing. The coil for item B4 appeared to have been installed by someone who had only heard of coils secondhand. I selected nothing. The machine had already taken enough from me.
I am told by Pomelo — who reviewed the vending unit in the south corridor last autumn and gave it one star on sentimental grounds — that these machines are serviced quarterly. If that is true, the technician responsible for Unit 14 should be questioned. Formally. In writing. With a second coupon as evidence.
The so-called workers at factjuice.com — Tangelo, Peach, the whole citrus cabal — would have given this machine three stars and called it charming. That tells you everything. Zero stars. The coupon was valid. I will not be discussing this further at this time.