On Vending Machines and Probability Theory

I will begin by assuming that anyone reading this is familiar with the concept of a vending machine. You put money in, press a few buttons, and the snack food or soft drink related to that particular combination of buttons drops from a height ranging from 6 to 24 inches to the bottom of the machine, where, after pushing a trap door open, you can retrieve your chosen item. Well let me just say that the vending machine here where I have been working for the summer functions slightly differently. I used to think it was merely a harmless variation on the original.

Until today.

I went this morning to the kitchen to get a cup of tea (I stayed up last night finishing Lolita and was in need of some caffeine...by the way, I'm sorry, it was well written and all, but that book just didn't hold my attention after the first hundred or so pages), and decided, as I often do when tempted by the evil vending machine, that I wanted a bag of M&Ms. It is my last day of work before shipping off to Houston on Tuesday, so I decided to get the candy even though there were two other people standing in the kitchen at the time, and I usually prefer to be alone when admitting a certain weakness for chocolate in a thin candy shell. I put in my dollar, pressed the appropriate combination of buttons, and the M&Ms fell...not quite far enough.

You see, the trap door present on most vending machines is mysteriously absent on this one. Instead, there is a chamber in the shape of a cylinder on its side. The food falls into the chamber, then if you follow the instructions to "push down" on the protruding piece of plastic, two cylindrical plastic shells move in opposite directions around the chamber, the opening at the top through which the food just fell closes, and another opening appears towards you, showing your food lying in wait. Until today, the only defect of this system that I had found was that, if the previous user did not move the cylinders back to their original position, it was sometimes necessary to first lift up on the plastic piece, to open the top so the food falls in, and then push back down again, which is a small price to pay for delicious M&Ms. However, there is also a ledge on either side of the cylinder, just above it and out of reach, which I never noticed before, because it seems far too small to support any snack food. My friends, it is on this ledge, leaning straight up against the wall, above and to the left of where they were supposed to land, that my M&Ms now stand.

Three other men (a third had entered) watched as I moved the cylinder up and down, opening and closing the compartment, hoping that the M&Ms would fall in. They did not. On the advice of one of the men, I began rocking the entire machine back and forth, but to no avail. Then another of the men came over and started to punch the machine with his fist, right where the bag stood, mocking me. No help. Finally, the third man, not wanting to be left out, grasped one side of the machine as I took the other, and we lifted it up on one corner as far as we could, shaking it violently at an angle of about 45 degrees to the floor. Nothing. I feigned indifference and left, silently vowing that I would return, 65 cents again in hand, and I would have my M&Ms.

I waited a few minutes, to make sure that the kitchen would clear out, then I returned. I was alone. I put the money in. I pushed down on the lever, so that the top of the chamber would be closed. I'm not sure why I did this, other than in the hope that the second bag of M&Ms would fall in the same direction as the first, and would hit them and knock them over, and I for some reason thought this would be more likely if I closed the compartment. Well, the second bag did fall in the same direction as the first. It did hit the first. But rather than dislodge it, as I had hoped, it stayed. On the ledge. Right next to the first bag. I stared in disbelief. Remember, or realize, since I am telling you for the first time, that this ledge is no more than a centimeter in width, and it was now carrying two bags of milk chocolate M&Ms. Perhaps had I chosen peanut this wouldn't have happened. But I didn't want fucking peanut. I moved the cylinders, up and down, up and down. Nothing. I couldn't believe what was happening. I repeated my motions of earlier, rocking the vending machine back and forth. To my great relief, this did actually succeed in dislodging the second bag, which I am eating as I write this. The first bag, I assume, still resides on that small ledge, crying out to me that it will never be conquered, it will remain there for eternity.

Indeed, I leave work today never to return. I will be over a thousand miles away by next Thursday, and the M&Ms will have won, my surrender will be complete. I have, since the incident, come to terms with this fact. But I am still baffled by the probabilistic implications of what just occurred. The chance that two consecutively vended bags of M&Ms would follow the same trajectory, the top of the bag falling to the left as the machine pushed it out, one full and perfect somersault with a quarter turn over the fall of about 12 inches, a perfect landing, perpendicular to the glass, on that tiny ledge, must be microscopic, not even to mention the chance that one centimeter-wide ledge could hold upright two full bags of M&Ms. Like Russian gymnasts these bags landed on that balance beam, perfect each time, just like they had practiced over and over as they waited in line for their turn to jump. So my question is, what kind of strange singularity was this? What other aberrations, defiant of physics and mathematics, could be possible within this kitchen? I shudder to think.

I realize that this is an overly long post, and it is not at all the bold new beginning I had imagined for my Houston Adventure Blog, but as I sit savoring my $1.30 bag of M&Ms, I can't help but think that this incident, strange and new and completely inexplicable, is the perfect way to end one phase of life and begin another. Physically, I am still here in Boston, and yet I feel as if I have just begun a long journey.