That Darned Coke Machine

I've always thought of myself as a person interested in almost everything and may have been born with that trait. Of course Dad was like that and he may have passed some of that along to me - if not through his genes then certainly on the many projects we tackled together.

When I was really small, maybe three or four, Dad told me he could have one of his old cars up on blocks working on something underneath and I would be right there with him watching his every move. He said he would need a tool and turn around to get it or ask me to get it for him and I would have the exact tool he needed in my outstretched hand as if he had communicated that to me telepathically. He said I just seemed to know what he needed without being told.

Several years later I was in the break room at the north end of the first and second grade school building where there was a red pop machine and several kids my age milling around. The machine was the type that dispensed a six-ounce glass bottle of Coca Cola from the top.

Upon closer inspection the mechanism was simple in that it required a dime to be inserted into a narrow slot on top then rotate a large handle to expose the next bottle at the bottom of a recessed opening. The individual seeking the coke would then insert his hand into the five inch hole and retrieve the cold bottle of soda pop then let the handle return back to its home position.

Once in a while, during a recess or before class, a teacher or one of the kids whose parents had money would purchase a coke and drink it while I watched. They would always catch my stare as if to wonder, "What's that kid doing staring at me?" Or to wonder if they should offer me a drink or to question if I was staring at them for another reason, especially if the person was a girl. My stare would have been that intense.

I'm not sure why I would have waited for that particular moment and not have tried sooner. Perhaps it was my first day in school or it was the first time I had been in the break room. I just don't remember. But one day I decided to get closer to the situation and actually climbed up on the machine where I could observe the action then watched closely as a little freckled faced girl came in and stuck a thin silver dime into the slot on top and turned the handle.

From my vantage point I saw the mechanism at the bottom of the hole began to operate and the bottles began to rotate around until one of them was directly below the opening and the little girl reached in to retrieve her bottle of pop.

With the same determination I had displayed helping my dad with one of his old cars, I paid particular attention to the relationship between the lever and the position of the mechanism at the bottom of the hole restraining the next bottle as the little girl removed her soda pop and released the lever.

My interest was bumped to another level when I noticed a small time delay before the opening closed up and also saw another bottle of pop sitting there ready for the taking. But before I could get my hand in there and retrieve the bottle the mechanism closed up, locking the next bottle in place.

Still there was hope. If I could just get my hand in there a second sooner and retrieve the bottle before the lever closed completely then the little girl would not be the only one to have an ice cold six ounce bottle of Coca Cola.

Thinking that I continued to watch curiously as another person, a heavyset kid about my age approached the machine and placed his dime in the slot and pulled the lever. We exchanged glances as he removed his coke and that might have taken up some of the delay time I needed before the mechanism closed on the next bottle. But I didn't think about it at the time and went in after what I thought would be a free bottle of soda pop.

I felt my fingers wrap around the cold neck of the next bottle and was about to pull it free when I heard the dreaded clunking sound of the mechanism as it released and closed on my wrist. My hand was trapped in the space wrapped around the next bottle of Coca Cola and I was stuck like a rat in a mousetrap and just like the rat, there was no amount of wiggling that could free my hand so I just lay there and waited.

Soon a crowd started to gather along with some of my friends. One of them lived across the street from me. He said, "You dumb shit!" Another one insisted, "I'm going to kick your butt when you get out or here." Others just glared at me, not believing someone they had been seen playing with would pull such a stunt - to get caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

Many of them were just like me. They didn't have any money but there were other ways to get a soda pop than sticking your hand in a pair of handcuffs and throwing away the key. Perhaps they were smarter than me, I didn't know. All I knew was they were free and I was not.

By the time the school bell rang, the room was bulging with first and second graders and several teachers. And once the shock wore off, one of the teachers saw my predicament and sensing an immediate danger ran to get the principal.

He showed up in a couple of minutes and squeezed through the pressing crowd packed inside the small room attempting to get a look at the crazy kid with his hand stuck in the coke machine.

When the principal appeared in the open doorway, the first thing he did was to instruct the teachers to get their kids to their classroom. "The bell has already rang," he said, sternly, "and it's time to start your classes."

Meanwhile, as the crowd began to thin somewhat, the principal fished around in his pocket and found a thin silver dime: a coin with Roosevelt's left facing picture on the front side and on the back was a torch with an olive branch on the left and an oak branch on the right. The edge of the dime was serrated with 118 ridges, a diameter of 17.92 mm, a thickness 1.35 mm and is the smallest, thinnest and lightest of all the US coins but I didn't care about all that. He held the coin between his thumb and forefinger and switched his gaze between the thin piece of silver and me as if wondering if it was worth the effort or was trying to decide which was worth the most - the coin or me. All I wanted was to get my hand out and watched attentively as the principal inserted the thin sliver of silver into the same slot the two first graders had used previously and the same slot I would have used if I had a dime in my pocket.

In a couple of seconds I heard the sound of the coin rake the edges of the slot then clank its way past the triggering mechanism to the holding bin, followed by the anxious sound of the handle rotating and the heat of blood rushing to my fingers when the ratchet released my hand and I was free.

I exchanged glances with the principal again as I massaged my wrist then jumped down off the machine and ran past him through the door and down the hall to my first grade classroom. He didn't try to stop me but I heard him yell after me. He said, "you do that again and I'll leave you in there!"