Big White
A strange calm settled over me as I stood before the large, white vending machine and dropped a quarter into the appropriate slot. I listened as the coin clunked into register. Then I pressed the button marked “Hot Chocolate.” From deep inside a paper cup slid down a chute, crackling into place on a small metal rack. Through an unseen tube poured coffee, black as night and smoking hot.
I even smiled as I moved to my customary place at the last table, sat down, and gazed across to the white machine, large and clean and defiant. Not since it had been moved in between the candy machine and the sandwich machine had I known peace. Every morning for two weeks I had selected a beverage, and each time the machine had dispensed something different. When I pushed the button for hot chocolate, black coffee came out. When I pushed the button for tea with sugar, coffee with half-and-half came out. So the cup of coffee before me was no surprise. It was but one final test; my plan had already been laid.
Later in the day, after everyone else had left the building, I returned to the snack bar, a yellow legal pad in my hand and a fistful of change in my pocket. I approached the machine and, taking each button in order, began feeding in quarters. After the first quarter I pressed the button labeled “Black Coffee.” Tea with sugar came out and I recorded that on the first line of my pad. I dropped in a second quarter and pressed the button for coffee with sugar. Plain tea came out and I wrote that down.
I pressed all nine of the buttons, noting what came out. Then I placed each cup on the table behind me. When I had gone through them all, I repeated the process, and was delighted to find the machine dispensing the same drinks as before.
None was what I had ordered, but each error was consistent with my list.
I was thrilled. To celebrate, I decided to purchase a fresh cup of chocolate.
Dropping in two dimes and a nickel and consulting my pad, I pressed the “Coffee with Sugar and Half-and-Half” button. The machine clicked in response, and a little cup slid down the chute, bouncing as it hit bottom. But that was all. Nothing else happened. No hot chocolate poured into my cup. No black coffee came down. Nothing.
I was livid. I forced five nickels into the slot and pushed the button for black coffee. A cup dropped into place but nothing more. I put five more nickels in and pushed another button, and another cup dropped down— empty. I dug into my pocket for more change, but found only three dimes. I forced them in and got back a stream of hot water and a nickel change. I went berserk.
“White devil!” I screamed as I slammed my fists against the machine’s clean, enamel finish. “You white devil!”
I beat on the buttons and rammed the coin-return rod down. I wanted the machine to know what pain was. I slapped at the metal sides and kicked its base with such force that I could almost hear the bone in my foot crack, then wheeled in agony on my good foot, and with one frantic swing sent the entire table of coffee-, tea-, and chocolate-filled cups sailing.
That was last night. They have cleaned up the snack bar since then, and I have had my foot X-rayed and wrapped in that brown elastic they use for sprains. I am now sitting with my back to the row of vending machines. I know by the steadiness of my hand as I pour homemade hot chocolate from my thermos that no one can sense what I have been through—except, of course, the great white machine over against the wall.
Even now, behind me, in the space just below the coin slot, a tiny sign blinks off and on:
“Make Another Selection,” it taunts. “Make Another Selection.”