You Cannot Cheat The Machine

I was probably four years old. I was in the supermarket with my mother and a few of my siblings. The shopping is all done and we make it to the checkout counter. As kids, we didn't just wait patiently in line…we needed a catastrophic amount of mental stimulation. And so that's what the gumball machines are for at supermarkets.

We make our way over. My brother and I are checking them out. "How did they work?" we wondered with our eyes. Then my brother sticks his hand up one of them. He pulls something out. A spring? A toy? I'll probably never know, because the item he pulled out is just a vague memory, blurred by the next action that sets off a series of traumatic events. I decide, with my limitless little boy sense of adventure, that my tiny toddlerish hands would certainly fit even better than my older brother's up one of the machines. So I stick my hand in. I get it up there pretty good. Then I hear, "Come on, boys, let's go!" from my mother behind me. I turn around, ready to pull out my arm and join my family. Ready to pull my arm out. Seriously…ready. But nothing's happening. It's stuck!

"Michael! What are you doing? It's time to leave!"

I'm not talking.

"Michael! Do you hear me? Come on! It's time to go!"

"Mom. I'm stuck."

A crowd formed. I was noticed…pretty freaking quickly, I might add. If you think about it, a checkout line at a supermarket is quite the instant audience if you need to get a message across. But this was not what I had in mind.

We tried a few fruitless attempts at pulling my arm free with brute force, but there's a fine line between the maximum allowable effort needed to free my arm from this blasted contraption, and a jailable offense on the grounds of child abuse and endangerment. So we succumbed to evaluating our options.

Attempt #1 (to free the silly boy's arm from the clutches of the hungry machine): The manager, an old man who wore a bowtie and smelled of oatmeal cookies and mothballs, thought it would be a good idea to spray soapy water up there and see if my arm would slip free. Nice try. No dice.

Attempt #2 (involved more slippery stuff):  Butter!! Yeah, no. ;(

Attempt #3 would have destroyed most children for the rest of their lives. It only messed me up for about 10 years or so. Here's what happened: the fire department showed up. Blaring sirens on a larger than necessary truck. Full on gear, axes at the ready. They storm into the supermarket, probably thinking there's a zombie apocalypse going on, with undead roast beef in the deli attempting to overthrow a rotting lettuce army in the produce section. Instead they find this kid. Me. Who is obviously having a horrible day.

Everybody in the entire world was there. You were probably there and didn't even know it.

They dismantle the machine. Piece by piece, they took it apart, until my wee little hand and wrist were freed from the metal tunnel of doom.

Before I go, one of the fire fighters gives me a present. A box of Nerds candy. That's what was in the gumball machine. How fitting.

- The End