[b]We all like convenience. It is, after all…convenient.

We all like convenience. It is, after all…convenient. Think about how many things are much easier now than they were; - we have piped water works; efficient, sanitary sewage systems; we can get from A to B in a few hours using aeroplanes instead of a few months using wooden boats; and we all but laugh in face of infection due to our good allies - antibiotics.

Personally, I think we take a lot for granted – or at least those of us that were born after the introduction of convenience. My momma still tells stories of how she had to walk miles and miles to school; how most of the time meat was hunted instead of store bought in cellophane packages (she was part of a large country family); how food was cooked on a giant black stove with a cauldron hung in the middle; and how, in her younger years, baths were taken in a big tub that was manually filled with stove heated water. Yup, I reckon we’ve got it good these days. In fact, we’ve got it so good that we have machines on our streets that can dispense just about anything we can think of; -

Imagine that it’s 2 o’clock in the morning and you’ve suddenly realised that your household is without a single potato in the kitchen…I know, it’s a disturbing thing to consider but go on, think about that – it’s the wee hours of the morning and there’s nary a potato to be seen! What if guests come knocking on your door expecting to be fed some starchy goodness? Oh my, whatever will you do?

Well, in 1962 this dilemma worried an English grocer so much that he just had to install a 24-hour machine on the outside of his shop; - a machine that gave you potatoes if you gave it money.

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Okay, so maybe you don’t worry about running out of vegetables. Maybe you’re the kind of person that worries about running out of booze. Or maybe you’re the kind of person that thinks days at the office would be greatly improved with the installation of a Whiskey machine. I’d class myself as one of the latter.

I’m almost sure my work would not suffer if we did get one of these in the office and I’m damned sure it would make my co-workers much easier to handle; - Dutch courage would entice me to let loose my tongue and give everybody who torments me on a daily basis a piece of Hellcat wrath (which is kept in check on a daily basis).

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To be honest, when I think of vending machines I don’t really think of potatoes or whiskey, I think of candy or fizzy-juice or…well, that’s about it – I really should get out of Scotland more. During my search of ‘interesting things sold in vending machines’ I came across some clever but not-so-weird products; -

A machine that sells ties for the absent-minded businessmen;

Or one that offers umbrellas for unexpected downpours;

Or one that is half-way between normal and kinda weird – a machine that sells live bait, hopefully for fishing and such.

I’d still not like to walk past one of these; – it would make my insides squirm at the thought of lots and lots of little crawly bugs, and then my imagination would run away with the thought and wonder what would happen if there were to be a power cut, the bugs no longer kept comatose by the cold, instead growing and mutating until a great squirming black mass came oozing out of the sides and…*shudder*…never mind.

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Anyhoos, when I think of vending machines, I think of quick and easy transactions with pretty much no human interaction involved; they guarantee that no irritatingly happy sales persons will try to accost you. From a business point of view, these machines cut out the cost of actually paying a human to man your goods. So why would you actually want to piddle away good money that could be going into your bank account on employing a real-live person to sit inside your vending machine and look creepy?

If I saw one of these I’d be returning my small change to my pocket and backing away slowly, all the while keeping my eyes on the strange, hobo-pretending-to-have-a-job-esque person.

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‘K, so we’ve covered midnight potatoes, office whiskey, creepy-crawly bugs and unnecessary human interaction but what kind of food do you expect from a vending machine? Like I said, I’d have thought candy and such; I would not have thought pizza.

Really, I don’t know what it is and I don’t know if other folk think the same but when I see machines that sell pizza and French fries and pasta, I tend to think “gross. I wonder what the Health & Safety rules are concerning that”. How often are those things cleaned on the inside? Who checks? How long has the food been in there for? Everything about it seems to scream “Salmonella! Food Poisoning! Roll up, roll up, get yours now!”

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This one made me giggle; -

These monoliths dispense marijuana. You’d be forgiven for thinking this kind of thing would only exist in Holland considering how crazy those plant-smoking, freedom-loving hippies are. But no! these machines are situated in LA, North America can only be accessed by those with a prescription for the easy-going drug. Actually, as well as a prescription, you’d need a finger-print scan, a prepaid credit card and your whole life story on record. After that, however, you’re free to walk up to one of these machines, nod politely to one of the armed security guards watching over the machine, choose a strain of weed (including one called Granddaddy Purple) and then mosey on home to trip some balls.

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Maybe it’s the bibliophile in me but I love the idea of this one; - a vending machine that dispenses books.

This seems like it would be at home in some kind of future utopia where everybody can read and would rather consume a good book than a load of unhealthy junk food. I can’t even imagine what my other half would have to endure if we had these in my home town; a 15 minute walk would turn into an epic 3 hour journey as I stop to peruse every book-machine on the street. In saying that, they don’t quite hold the charm that a book-store does; - there’s no where to sit and cheekily read half a book without paying for it, there’s a limited selection and I’d probably be arrested when I lost interest in one of the books only to try and force it back into the slot in an offended manner as I also tried to get my money back.

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This last one is not so much a vending machine but an engenius (read: weird) piece of clothing that deserves mentioning. In Japan, some people are so fearful of being mugged or murdered or worse o_0 that clothes designers have created garments that become a hiding place when and if you're being persued by an undesirable;

I don't know about you guys but even if I was a crazy, mugging killer fuelled by alcohol, I'd still notice them feet at the bottom.

Ah, the convenience of it all.