Get your quarters ready ...

Ah, New Paltz. The place that separates the smart hippies from the overly-burnt out ones. Well, maybe not so much ...

The other day I was in a student lounge standing before a vending machine, trying to decide what was more worth my $1.25: a Mountain Dew code red, or a raspberry iced tea (decisions, decisions). There were two girls a couple of feet away from me standing in front of the ATM machine (remember that, it's important), looking as if they were waiting for someone. This is the conversation I overheard during my trip to the vending machine:

Girl 1: There should be a vending machine that gives out money!
Girl 2: Yeah! Oh my god, that would be awesome. I'd totally be there all the time!
Girl 1: Me too! I'd never go to class!
Girl 2: Wait, but if it gives out money, then what do you put in?
Girl 1: *silence*

So, in case you care, I quickly bought myself a Mountain Dew (caffeine always comes first, k?) and retreated because I couldn't contain my own laughter.

So that got me thinking...what kind of vending machines don't we see that maybe we should??

Pen/pencil vending machine - Preferably located near to classrooms in schools. It's such a bitch to find you've forgotten to bring a pen to class. Bumming off somebody else constantly in high school is almost expected (from some people) but in college it's much less classy. And on the rare occasion a teacher decides to use those computer bubble sheets for tests, 90% of the class will forget to bring a #2 pencil to class because who the hell uses them anymore, anyway? My friend Chris has probably borrowed and consequently stolen thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of pens and pencils throughout his academic career. I'm sure a vending machine would have been of great assistance to him.

A Common-Cold relief machine - Once you get into college, it's no longer a badge of pride to miss as many classes as you can, but instead a huge waste of money and a pain in the ass to make up. When you get sick (as I have, 10x more often since I graduated high school - a conspiracy?) you still have to show up, pretty much. Same with work, regardless of how much your sinuses are gushing, your throat is raggedly sore and how often you interrupt your professor's lecture with sneezing fits. A vending machine containing tissue packs, chap-stick, cough drops, day-quil, throat spray, nose drops and disposable thermometers (just in case your case becomes severe enough for a trip to the health center) would definitely make this situation easier for a lot of people.

Reserved Parking machine - As much as I can't complain too much about parking right now because I chose to take classes that start at 12:30 in the afternoon instead of 8:30 in the morning, I still hate parking because at my school there is no pattern. Sometimes at 2:30 on Monday there's tons of spots and sometime there's none. As a commuter, I pay even more than the average student* to attend school because I pay for gas, tolls (when I take the thruway) and I pay in the form of time, too ... I spend over an hour driving to school and back every day. It would be pretty super sweet if I could put a few bucks into a machine and get myself an official New Paltz reserved parking sign, enforced by the all-powerful campus security, to smack down wherever I'd like to park every day. I understand this would contain limited product because it would sell so fast, so we could set down some rules on it (as long as they favor me, of course). For instance, ellible students must be juniors or seniors with a B GPA or higher at the time of sale. Like me.

* the average student lives on campus and their tuition is taken care of by their parents or the state in the form of student aid. i pay for my own tolls and gas.

Skip it - Does anyone feel like college classes, for the most part, are repeats of other classes you've already taken? As if showing up and doing the work is all you really have to do to pass because a vast majority of the information has already been stored in your brain at some point or another? More importantly, has anyone seen the movie "Click" ?? Wouldn't you love a remote control that could fast-forward through time to the part where class is over, you have all the notes you need and information in your head but you didn't have to sit through an hour or two of sleep-inducing lectures? I would. I would definitely pay whatever a vending machine asked for that, even if I had to use that " money vending machine" that girl was talking about to get it ...

I could think of more if I wasn't heading out the door for another 40-minute trek to school. Anyone else have ideas?