My turn: Coke machine puts Progress staffer in his place

It wasn't but a few weeks ago that I stumbled upon a sobering realization about my place in the universe.It took place in the dead of a blustery cold Tuesday night in The Progress office.

Almost everyone had evacuated the Combs Building save myself and a skeleton crew of dedicated staffers.

As we do weekly, we labored into the night.

We worked diligently at antiquated Macintosh computers until our tears felt like sawdust, our wrists and fingers ached like gnarled trees and our bodies stooped like languid starfish.

After hours of toil, I could take no more. I needed refreshment if I was to go on.

Luckily for me, I had one quarter in my backpack and one dollar in my wallet.

It was the last of my money, but it would be enough to get me through the night.

I lumbered out of the office and down the hall, feeling lighter with each step as I anticipated the sweet refreshment of a Vault soda.

I could hear the soothing hum of the machine in the still corridor.

Rounding a corner, the gleaming redeemer came into view.

Joyfully, I opened my crisp bill and fed it into the machine followed by my coin.

I took a brief second to savor the beauty of choice.

I knew I was getting a Vault, but for a second I was going to pretend I might get a Cherry Coke or a Coca-Cola.

I took a breath.

Vault it is, I told myself as I pressed the button with newfound glee.

The machine made the appropriate whirs and clicks before a deep thud echoed down the hallway with finality.

I reached to grab the restorative elixir so that I could savor its grand countenance.

And that was when the horror struck.

The machine hadn't given me a Vault cola at all.

It had given me a Coke Zero.

To say I was spiritually, emotionally, thoroughly and unfailingly crushed is to begin to capture the despondency that set in at that quiet moment.

There was nothing I could do!

On the cusp of deliverance, this vindictive brute had taken the last of my money and then maliciously denied me that which it had promised.

There would be no respite from the labor, no refreshment from the suffering.

And, as I stood there stupefied at the fact that I was completely powerless to improve my lot, I realized something.

I am not the master of my own fate.

I am simply a terribly insignificant creature in the vast universe, perhaps even nothing more than series of lucky evolutionary breaks arriving at this unlucky break in the middle of night.

Furthermore, I was incapable of doing anything about the fact that I had been denied my chosen beverage!

I'm strictly a powerless spectator in the cosmic joke of my life.

What could be the point in continuing this wretched and impossible existence? I asked.

And before I could think of an answer I sighed and went back to work.