Photo courtesy of Nora Williams.
The Onion Dip Column is the satire section. All articles are not to be taken seriously.
That deep blue neon lighting casts its light out from Schnader, resembling a lighthouse that signals to the weak and weary. The double set of glass doors welcomes any desperate, starving F&M student who stumbles upon it; above the doors, on a navy-colored sign with our college’s typical white scrawl is inscribed: 24/7. The twenty-four-seven center, located almost opposite the Dining Hall, houses a particular behemoth of a machine that is either infamous or decent, depending on who you ask.
The pizza vending machine, a product of Guangzhou IPLAYSMART Technology Co., holds students in high hopes by promising a warm pizza delivered into their waiting hands in ~five minutes. For those who have remained blissfully unaware until this point, the pizza machine typically offers three types of pizza: cheese, pepperoni, and bacon. At least one of these is sold out at any time. Yet, for the price of ten dollars (unless you buy a pizza with a topping, which is $12), the machine does dispense a personal-sized pizza cut haphazardly into fourths. The baby pizza is swaddled in a foil tin pan and laid to rest in a quaint pizza box; it’s scorching hot when the doughy mass comes out, so the cheese and grease layered on top is, at first, relatively liquid. Let the pizza cool off, though, and this issue subsides as the cheese and grease solidify together, and the slices can be pulled apart without the risk of the cheese completely sliding off the dough. I realize this description sounds the least bit healthy, but when you’re in the position of writing essays on an empty stomach at midnight, you’ll probably be more susceptible to throwing out your food morals, too. Regardless, the most important question is this: how does it taste? As someone who spent some time venturing through the supermarket aisles of Giant in search of Ellio’s frozen pizza when I was younger, and quite honestly enjoying it when it came out of the oven, I’d say the pizza from the vending machine is not bad at all. I have had worse, and I have had better. It hits the spot when you’re in a crunch for time or up late at night. That being said, if you have time and would rather support a local business instead, I press you to check out Rosa Rosa Pizzeria, which is just a block off campus, next to the Chabad Jewish Center.
Made by the same vending company, another monster lurks within the depths of the Steinman College Center basement. The machine had been kept dormant for a few weeks at the beginning of the 2024-25 semester but has now awoken with a renewed pink vigor. The ice cream vending machine currently offers limited options, but hopefully, that will change. Your choice is this: vanilla ice cream. That’s it. One cup of plain vanilla ice cream costs six dollars, and there’s an extra charge for adding any of the two toppings options, which are sprinkles and strawberry jam. Needless to say, it’s a tad bit disappointing, but it’s still ice cream. Taste wise, it’s very sweet, and much too soft, which means it turns to liquid very quickly. However, a bonus is that the cup does come with a small, foldable plastic spoon, so having a utensil is not imperative to enjoying this machine-made treat. The wait time is significantly shorter than the time spent salivating over the doughy scent wafting from the pizza machine; yet, interestingly enough, both machines feature an animated short film to occupy the moments before you receive your tasty gift. It plays over and over, with nothing else to bide your time: a polar bear, with eager blue eyes and much-too-human teeth, starts a journey to trek up the side of a glacier. I won’t spoil the ending— but I will tell you that it is succinctly tragic. Again, if you have the time, I’d strongly recommend supporting another local business, which is just a few blocks off-campus: Splits and Giggles Cafe.
Freshman Ava Bronson is a Contributing Writer. Her email is abronson@fandm.edu.