Sunday, March 8, 2009

Correct change.

I realize I missed my day to blog last week. Seriously, I know, so stop giving me the internet's version of the stink eye. I feel bad enough about it as it is. And while I can't promise to make this one twice as good, I will make each post a little better each week until I've atoned for my Sunday blogger sins.

Whenever anyone breaks out a board game or mentions the idea of breaking out a board game, I smile on the outside and give a passive response, a shoulder shrug. But on the inside, my stomach flips and my brain throbs and I'm hoping to God their game closet will catch on fire or the dog will escape or something will happen to prevent a game from starting. I'm just naturally predisposed to hating procedure and organized competition, and board games represent a melding of the two. However, last night I walked right into the old board game trap and found myself playing a game similar to Apples to Apples, only less logical (if that is possible). My coping mechanism was to eschew accumulating points and give ridiculous answers instead - answers that would amuse the other players but keep me out of the running as far as winning went.

In said game, a card was drawn with a really general topic. Everyone wrote an answer down, and then you had to guess who'd written it. A really novel idea. But one question in particular struck my fancy: If you could design a vending machine, what would it dispense? I love vending machines of all kinds more than virtually anything else in existence. The quirkier the better. If a vending machine seems pointless, I will give it my life savings one quarter at a time.

Anyway, my answer was smaller vending machines. Because that would be amazing. In keeping with the theme of posing questions, what would your answer be? Mannequin fingers? 100-calorie packs of scrambled eggs? The coin-operated world is your oyster.

5 comments:

GW said...

Mine would vend currency in little sandwich bags. In the U.S., $0.40 would cost $0.43. The most you could buy would be $0.90, which would cost $1, because I don't want people treating this like a damn change machine.

Crump said...

Mine would dispense lartwist. I don't know what it is, but it came up as the word verification I have to type in to post this comment, and it sounded interesting to me

Unknown said...

I was thinking about that recently because I randomly ran across a Pringles vending machine. It dispensed nothing but full tubes of Pringles. Who walks around and thinks to themselves, "God, I would kill for a can of Pringles right now?"

You know what would be great? A vending machine devoted to Corn Nuts, beef jerkey and Dr. Pepper. Now THAT's a vending machine.

Chris Othic said...

Here is a list of things I always need and never have that should be in a vending machine:

Kleenex
An extra mitten
Umbrella
Bud Light
Backscratcher
Black Licorice
Season Statistics for the 1985 Kansas City Royals
A periscope
Rogaine

Mike Bauman said...

Books. When the new David McCullough tome drops, I'd rather hit A5 than walk to the library.