I am an introvert and a weird person. This is about me secretly having fun with a snack vending machine in the office.
I am collecting the US state series quarters. Mr. and Mrs. A, my Japanese ex-neighbors, told me that some US quarters have a different design, and showed me their collector map for the state series quarters. It is going to be a good souvenir when I go back to Japan, and it will also help me to learn the location of each state. I went straight to Barns & Noble and got the collector map. I then talked about that to another Japanese friend, Mr. I. He has lived in the US for five years and had many quarters he could exchange with my normal ones. When he returned to Japan, he left me all the coins he could not use in the US, and there were many state quarters. My collection book looked very good for that of a person living in the US for just one year. But even with his help, there were still many empty states to fill.
In fact, many of my quarters came from a snack vending machine in the office. I noticed that I always got a state quarter when I used the vending machine. I do not buy snacks often, but when I do, I put one dollar and five cents in the machine to buy a 80 cent snack so that I may get a quarter back. Or, I put one dollar and twenty cents for a 70 cents snack to get two quarters back. I have been making that silly attempt, and I often got state coins to be added in my collection. It was my secret hobby.
Last week, however, I noticed something even more stupid but awesome. I entered a normal quarter in the vending machine, but there was nothing I wanted to buy. I pressed a button to get the money back. To my surprise, it was not the plain quarter I entered, but it was a state quarter that came out. Besides, it was the state quarter of Arkansas that I did not have. I tried that again with another normal quarter, and got another state coin. It was a state coin of Washington I did not have either. This does not happen in Japan. We always get the same coin back when we press a return button.
I still want a quarter of 16 more states. I am not stealing anything, but just getting a coin of the same value returned. Do you think it is fine to exchange coins through a snack vending machine?
