Dream XL

At a McDonalds, my youngest son wanted to get a hamburger called "The Thing" (in honor of the Fantastic Four) from a vending machine that was in the restaurant. I warned him that it would have cheese, pickles, onions, and other things that he didn’t like, but he was adamant.

My older son went with me to the vending machine, which wa an odd, semi-translucent sphere with red spikes on it. It was on a stalk bent at an angle. My older son was insistant that we use it, but it seemed to me that it was only a change machine and had no food. None of us could see a way of using it. As we circled the machine, looking for some kind of evidence of function, another kid came up and put money in the machine.

It swayed back and forth, and did nothing. The boy became quite upset, and so did my son. The boy ran off, and we saw that a large line was now waiting to use the machine. I told my son that it was time to go back, and he was still almost tearful that we hadn’t used the machine.

All he wanted to do was use the machine; he didn't care about the food or the money, and I hadn’t let him. By the time I realised this, the line to use the machine was huge, and impossible to get back into.