Like most of you, I have to hustle on the side to pay to keep my babies' mommas quiet. There are five of them, so the fake ID business I run out of Love Shack and my slanging of crack rock don't cover all the bills. My career advisor told me it's an awful time to enter the legitimate side of business, with the economy and everything,"" but I told her I had no other option. I got baby daughters to feed, Gail, and payments on my Kymco, bitch. So I had to find another way.
Luckily, my mom gave me a gumball machine when she cut me loose at 18, so that I could live off gumballs or something. But I had a brilliant idea when I was longboarding (JK!) the other day: why don't I sell gumballs, and get hood rich off all dem quarters? So that's what I've been doing.
The machine itself is one of those double-barreled beauties that dispense candy on the other side. I bought 10 pounds of Mike & Ike on eBay (dumb idea, don't do it), loaded the other side with Seedlings, ""the fruit-shaped bubble gum with candy seeds,"" set the machine in my living room and waited for the jingles to pour in. In hindsight, I probably should have put the machine in the Plaza or something where drunk hipsters who pay for their drinks in coin would actually buy candy, but as my parents always told me when they were talking about the things they should've done before they had me, ""well, it's too late now!""
I live with nine fat kids anyway, so my merchandise moves, you could say. Except there's a problem. My roommates treat my candy like it's coconuts; they'll pay for it if they have to, but they'd rather just shake something until it comes down for free. I suppose I do the same thing. If there's a Fast Break bar dangling inside the vending machine in College Library, I'll totally shake and kick the machine until it drops. Heck, I'll even feel like I earned it. But then I usually throw it away, because Fast Breaks suck.
But my machine is different. Mostly because it's mine. When my roommates or attendees of our P.
Diddy parties pass the machine on their way through the room, it should send a message to them. Say fat Paul waddles through. The gumball machine should cry out to his eyes, ""Hey! Fat kid! Look at what David did! He spent a bunch of his money stocking me with yummy Ikes and Mikes and those gumballs yous likes! You want some? Yeah you do! Just give me a quarter, and I'll fill your fat hand with sugar ... I know, just one quarter!"" And then fat Paul waddles away happy and I can buy a quarter more worth of McDonald's for my daughter. But it doesn't work that way.
Granted, no one in my house speaks gumball-machinese, but they totally misinterpret what my machine says to them. They think it says something like, ""Hey! Dumpy Dan! You like candy? Yeah I know, who doesn't? Well guess what? Greedy David locked all this candy inside me, and he wants everybody to pay him a quarter for it to feed his crack addiction ... I know, a whole quarter! Well, I'll tell you what, you could either help finance crime and give Miser D his money, or you could shake the bejeezes out of me for like 10 minutes until about two pieces fall out. No brainer, I know! ... That's it, jibber-jabber the shit out of me!""
I'm gonna have to start bustin' some caps. There is an economic crisis in my living room, and my roommates are bailing my assets out, not me. Last weekend they shook it until the back fell off and robbed all my quarters and bought new candy which they keep in a dish on our coffee table and don't pay squat for. Plus, even when they do feel like paying for it, I have to compete with that Lutheran Student Center on Gilman because they sell Nerd Ropes, which I can't get out of my machine too well. So this is what I'm going to have to do: start charging you all for reading my articles. You've already read the whole thing, so don't try to get out of it now. Ten dollars. No, 20. If I don't come up with $90 for my BM's Charter bill by next week I'll have to sell my graphing calculator or something. E-mail me, I'll tell you where to send the check.
Send all billing inquiries to dhottinger@wisc.edu
