By now you’ve all heard at least 1,000 times that there are record high temps here in Texas, so I won’t tell you again. (Except yes, it’s really, really hot. Like warm blanket hot. And this blanket is made of lava.) I’m tired and a little cranky tonight and don’t feel like doing much. Also, at lunch I ate my weight in rice and beans and tacos so it’s likely I’d need a Segway to make the block or two to dinner. So yes, I don’t feel like going out because I am lazy, but also because I don’t want to drink this evening. Going to the hotel’s adjacent restaurant would expose me to the allure of clinking bulbous glassware and regrettable kissing decisions. It’s too much to handle in my compromised state.

So I went to the hotel vending machine. A disappointing find, to say the least, with Funyuns and lots of pretzels and dry flaky things. And nuts and also some chips that, while not Fritos, surely look like they’d smell like them. About once a month I eat something with base ingredients other than dough and spaghetti sauce, something sweet like candy, and figured this might as well be my night. I’m in a new city! Watch as I go and eat me some Starburst instead of vegematables! I carefully fed the machine my crispest dollar. It pushed the lean yellow wrapper of Starburst goodness to the very edge, and then it stopped, still gripping what I can only imagine was the very sweetest light pink Starburst on God’s green earth. The machine made its electronic swallowing noise and then had the nerve to write out THANK YOU in its digital window. I threw my body up against the glass. Nothing. I paused. I am a working woman with a rental car and a new skirt from the Jones New York outlet. I can afford another 75 cents. I offered up another fresh dollar. The metal coil repeatedly rolled. And this time it stopped with the hook hanging onto not one, but two lean yellow wrappers, containing what I can now only imagine were the two very sweetest pink Starburst in the entire Milky Way. There is no way this is happening, I thought. No way is this happening.

And how is it that the saying goes? Shame on you if you fool me once? Well, when I got the third dollar out, I knew it was a risk. Someone could walk by and see my sweaty reflection in the glass. That, or someone might see my green skin and my tee shirt shredding as my bulging muscles multiplied in sync with my hate. But I was going to show that machine who was boss. Things were going to change. I mean, it couldn’t not drop the candy after I’d invested my 401K, could it? Apparently – and you knew this was coming but it seems I did not – it could.

Walk away, Kris. It’s what I say to those senile old bats on Deal or No Deal when they get greedy and decide they’ll show a silhouette who it’s dealing with. It’s what my mother says to me when I repeatedly choose mac and cheese from the dating buffet. Move along now. That’s just the same old platter you keep going back to. And whatever you do, don’t settle for the nuts.

I went with the nuts. I’m thinking I should have opted for the Funyuns. Highly unlikely there’s any metaphor in Funyuns.