My Cheap Junk Machine

As children we make promises to ourselves. We want to "be an astronaut" one day. Or we say we will NEVER "take a bath" when we grow up.

As we get older we see how much friggin' work it is to join NASA and we develop better hygiene.

I promised myself a whole lot when I was a kid. So, I decided to grant Lil Sweetie one of his wishes.

When I was a kid about 10 minutes of every grocery store visit was spent checking out the "cheap junk" machines. You know, the dime machines that dispensed cheap little toys that would only keep your attention for the car ride home.

I would look at those machines from every side. I wanted to see the prizes I could get when I finally stuck my dime in.

More often than not, I was disappointed with what I got. It was almost always some girls ring. The best I could do with it was pretend it was some kind of super handcuffs that Cobra developed to keep G.I. Joe locked up.

As cool as that sounds, I wanted more. I wanted one of the good toys I saw in the machine. But, Mom's rule was usually one dime per visit.

So, I promised myself that when I was grown up I would buy my own machine.

And I did.



Look at that majestic beauty! I bought it online from a vending machine company and it is fantastic. Sadly, they didn't have any that took dimes, so I opted for the quarter machine.

Still, it holds the little dime prizes. I was able to get a few bags of those online as well. They have everything from mood rings and plastic spiders to little pencil erasers shaped like police cars.

And it's in my living room.

I'm living the dream.

I even designed my own "product card"