vending machine dollar

the dollar has to match the picture. ingrid said this while holding the machine's return slot open with a pen. she was not in charge of the machine, but she had the key ring and the flat voice, so the rule belonged to her.

i put in one dollar for crackers. the machine made the noise it makes when it has accepted a small animal. then it dropped a dollar into the tray. it was not my dollar. mine had a crease through the eagle and a black dot near the date. this one had a red smear and a corner that looked chewed.

"that's still a dollar," ingrid said.

i turned it over. the back had a strip of clear tape across the middle. the tape held two halves together, but one half was a little higher than the other. the machine had returned a dollar that had already been returned by something with worse judgment.

there were 106 dollars in the building's vending machines, according to the sheet taped inside the supply closet. i counted the boxes on the sheet twice. the first count was 106. the second count was also 106, but i had moved the bad dollar from the snack machine to the drink machine, so the number had not improved. this is how banks stay alive.

i put the dollar back into the machine. it accepted it and gave me a different dollar. this one had a wet thumbprint on george's face. i held it up to the light and saw a pale square where the paper had been rubbed thin. there was no light strong enough to explain it.

ingrid used the pen to press the return button. nothing happened. she pressed it again, harder, and the machine gave a soft click like it had remembered a name. the taped dollar fell out.

i tried the crackers anyway. the spiral turned halfway, stopped, and held the package above the tray. ingrid said the machine was out of order. i said it had been working until it learned the dollar was mine.

she took the dollar and put it in her pocket. the pocket had a zipper, which seemed excessive for one dollar. then she gave me a quarter from the register and told me to get something else.

i bought pretzels. the machine took the quarter and gave me back a dollar.

the dollar had my black dot on it.