If you're like me, your life can easily be described by your experiences with vending machines. Simple, elegant, and justifiably the most useful mechanical device devised by man, the vending machine is both a bane and a godsend for millions of people. Causing pain and suffering while simultaneously unleashing joy, vending machines are an integral part of nearly all of our lives.

"Blasphemy!" you may be saying to yourself. "I can hardly recall a time when a candy dispenser guessed how I was feeling at the time. It's not like it's got a mood meter or something, right?" Wrong. Well probably not, but I figure they must; either that or fate has a huge part in the matter.

Don't believe me? Here, in brief, is a summary of my life story with the vending machine.

As a child, I was happy and uncaring. Just like any boy who was not being molested by priests or pedophiles. I climbed trees, smashed bugs, and more than anything else in the world, enjoyed trying to fish candy or sodas out of vending machines with my small arms. This brought me little success until that fateful day when I discovered a soda machine that kept the money within arm's reach. Needless to say, I was extremely satisfied with myself for having found something I was good at. At least until they replaced all those types of machines in the area.

This made me very sad, and I entered a period of my life that I can sum up as being "not really worth describing." During these unexciting times, I was swindled out of countless dollars of change by vending machines hellbent on ruining my life. What had I ever done to them? All I wanted was a KitKat bar or a Sprite, and instead I got grief. Whoever stocks candy machines with grief ought to jump off a bridge.

As I slowly began to lose trust in those monoliths of simplicity and con artistry, my life took even more of a downturn. I became depressed, and was forced to please myself by digging holes and chopping down trees for which I would build a mausoleum to bury my forlorn body once I was finished. I also continued to have bags of chips hang on by a thread, just outside of my reach on the other side of the very breakable glass.

Yet I resisted unleashing my anger. I knew that someday, maybe, I would be happy again. All I had to do was hold on, and maybe I'd find what I was looking for. A machine that I could call "friend".

And so I waited, hoping, knowing that my time would come. Finally, after years of longing, I had found it - Michigan Technological University. A haven for vending machines, I knew that deep down, some of these machines had to like me. It was a new beginning for all of us.

Soon, my hopes were realized. Time after time, E5 after B7, Mountain Dew after Sunkist, I was not disappointed. In fact, I could go as far as to say I was happy again, and with every clunk of a falling soda I was reminded of the good times from my childhood.

Which brings me to last Friday, when I was greeted with a beautiful Spring morning, pleasant smiles, lovely spring flowers, and a 2-for-1 deal on Mountain Dews. My life could hardly get any better.

Or could it? I have yet to ever get a 3-for-1, or a candy machine that keeps spinning and deposits the entire row of Skittles into my arms, as if gold coins falling from the sky. Hey, a guy can hope, right?

Completely true story. And I bet I'm not the only one. I'm sure we're all part of this Vending Dimension, where all our overall lives accurately follow our vending machine experiences. Take a minute and think about it. Then decide whether it's worth putting change into that shifty looking change machine. It might be better just to go to the café instead.