THE Vending Machine

It was a machine well beyond any reality that I could comprehend. 30 years I had lived to that point and such a mechanical device I had not imagined. Perhaps it was the culture within which I had been raised. Issues of legality would make the device difficult to wield. But let the record reflect that it exists. I saw it.


August 1996

I was vacationing with friends in Barcelona, Spain. A night of drinking Spanish hooch was safely winding down despite having engaged inebriation. The hour was late and we had walked back to our hotel. We were standing out front when we saw it.

A vending machine in the lobby of the neighboring hotel caught our eye due to its unique merchandise. The oddity was not immediately distinguished, yet something about it caught our attention. We locked visuals on this machine and approached. It was a mere ten feet away behind the locked glass lobby door. The lobby was well illuminated with the machine occupying a focal point as if mocking us with its cool majestic indifference. From this vantage point our observations were digested. A beer vending machine!

Yes, you enter your peseta [‘peseta’ as this is pre-euro] into the slot and remove a cool bottle of beer . . . if it were not for the unfortunate locking mechanism keeping us apart from this product of impeccable ingenuity. We were not drunk, though certainly not in need of more beer. Heck, we were just going to go upstairs and be asleep soon. But this machine beckoned with its offerings of golden suds.

A security guard sat in the lobby shaking his head ‘no’ indicating that we were to be denied the pleasure of this desired commercial transaction. This guard, I thought later, was he guarding the hotel lobby or the vending machine? Guarding it from any harm that might be issued from such fingers as my own tainted by their desirous hankerings? Either way, this control he steadfastly declined to compromise. Even when we offered to buy him a beer for allowing access. Damn his gumption!


A beer vending machine. It exists. I saw it. It’s in Spain.
-klem