A nutritious breakfast melts in your mouth, not in your hands

Years of apartment living have conditioned me to hoard every quarter which comes my way. My laundry jar is almost overflowing, but I still can't bring myself to spend a single one. Smaller coins stay in my pocket for the next time I weaken and make a vending-machine run. I've been a good boy all week, so they were beginning to pile up. Today, I decided to do something about that.

I know that, despite all the hype, breakfast bars are really just candy bars in disguise--and at a premium price--but my conscience needed soothing. I thought that handful of dimes and nickles would add up to the $1.75 I needed for a Balance Bar, but after loading them all in, I still ended up twenty cents short. Pondering a second choice, I was roped in by the sirenic charms of the golden-yellow M&Ms package front and centre.

I selected; it fell. Then the one behind it fell and I thought, Nuts, I guess when you put in more than twice the purchase price, it gives you two. Then the one behind that fell. On top of it all, my full amount of change was returned to me, transformed into three unspendable quarters.

Was the machine feeling generous? Or did I just confuse the hell out of it?