Criticism as Autobiography

At the Literature Symposium

When I Got in a Fight

with a Vending Machine

            Black, carefully pressed trousers swished against my ankles as my kitten heels tapped down the tiled hallway, also black. For the sake of the image, I will also tell you that I was wearing a salmon colored blouse with a black fitted jacket; my hair was perfectly smoothed and in my left hand was a professional folder with my presentation in it. It was in my left hand so that I could easily shake hands with someone important, should I meet them just around the corner. I walked expertly into the classroom and sat down at the conference table to watch the other presentations while I awaited my turn.  

My professor came over to greet me, commenting on how sharp I appeared and wishing me luck. I had spent the better part of five weeks working with him on my essay on the well-known Hemingway piece, Hills Like White Elephants. Everyone else in the room had read it, surely, and no one else cared nearly as much about it as I did.  I was convinced that I had cracked the code; what I was about to say to them would impress and astonish, and they would go home and reread the story and credit me forever in their retelling of how their life was changed by this story.

The presentation went well, my slides all worked in order, and the polite applause felt more than polite as I sat down. We were all professionals there, no one knew, unless previously introduced, who was a student, or an author, or an editor, or a professor. Everyone was dressed in the same black-heavy ensemble, using big words in complicated sentences to say simple things.  “She was piously indebted to his work” instead of “She is obsessed. Really, it’s sort of an issue”.

And right in the middle of this wonderful networking opportunity, I got the munchies. There was a table in the corner with coffee and tea and cheese cubes from the sponsors, but that would not do. I took my very professional self out into the hallway, and went on a hunt for some chocolate, crunchy chocolate. This was a situation in need of nothing short of peanut M&M’s. Arriving at the vending machine. I quickly scanned the rows, nearly disappointed before I caught sight of the last yellow bag of pure happiness, sitting precariously on the edge of the shelf. I hurriedly collected dirty coins from the bottom of my little purse and paid homage to the vending machine gods to the beeping song of “E-12”.

The coins clanked and the buttons beeped and the machine whirred as the little silver cage let my M&M’s free; the yellow package hit the bottom of the machine with a noise that was just loud enough for me to be embarrassed, hoping no one had heard me. In the hopes of being discreet, I stooped to retrieve them and planning to quickly put them in my bag, the end open for the sneaking-one-by-one position I had perfected by now, after days and days of mid-class breaks that required just this stop to get me through the last half of lecture.

And that’s when it happened. The machine. The door, the little door on the bottom of the machine, behind which sat my prize; it wouldn’t open. I mean, it opened, but not enough to get my hand in. I paused with a verbal question mark escaping my lips as I tried again. Nope, the door would only open far enough to get my fingers through the gap, several inches away from my candy before it loudly hit the metal plate inside that was bent just a millimeter too far in.  I tried again and again, clank, slap, clank, slap, clank, slap. Surely someone would have heard me by now but it didn’t matter, I needed my M&M’s; I paid for them and I was NOT about to leave them here for the next person with slightly smaller wrists to conquer!  

I stood up and peered down into the machine, where my M&M’s were held captive like a prisoner of war. My makeup smeared on the glass as I leaned into it, holding both sides of the machine as if I could shake the door open. I decided to try my foot as a means of opening the machine, and my foot came in contact with the metal door just as a larger door swung shut, and the director of the English program came out of the classroom where I had just presented and walked down the hall towards me. I quickly turned around and leaned ever so casually against the corner of the vending machine, as if it would not be at all odd to find your presenter hanging out with the overpriced junk food mini-mall. She approached me and after faux-warm greetings, she said “I really enjoyed your speech; your essay was so well thought out and it was a very dignified presentation, I look forward to meeting with you in the future!” I offered thanks and an enthusiastic smile as she walked down the hall. And when she turned the corner, I kicked the machine again.

“Do you feel better?” He asked. “I feel fine,”she said. “There’s nothing wrong with me. I feel fine.”