Following is a story told by my Aunt Maureen about how the events from a simple trip to the grocery store when she was seven years old became an adventure that she would remember for the rest of her life.

In the words of my Auntie –

First let me say that we were dirt poor when growing up in the 1970’s.  It’s not something that I am either proud or ashamed of.  It’s just a fact.

It started out like any other Wednesday afternoon for the kids in our family.  Wednesday afternoons were spent shopping at the local grocery store in Milford with our Mom.  Who was to know that my adventure at the grocery store that afternoon was going to be something that I would remember for the rest of my life?  And it all started with a crazy gumball machine.

The truth is that a gumball from a vending machine was a big deal in our house.  Usually it was reserved for birthdays or holidays, or maybe an occasional Sunday.  When my big sister Kathy told me that she got a gumball on our weekday visit to the grocery store, well, it was just something that I had to have too.  How was I to know that the harmless glass container filled with gumballs would become my Pandora’s Box on that weekday afternoon?

So I put my seven year old left arm up into the vending machine.  My arm was like a snake, moving through the machine in search of a gumball.  Problem was, it got stuck.  Stuck real good.  No amount of twisting or turning was going to get my arm back.  After that there were a lot of different emotions and events.  First came the laughing, then the shock, and after that, the suggestions for getting my arm out of the machine, followed by fear, then a visit from the fire department, and after that came the tears.

Of course we all laughed when I couldn’t get my arm out of the machine, before we realized that my arm was really stuck in the jaws of a beast.  Slowly but surely, the laughing stopped when no matter how much I pulled it, I knew my arm wasn’t coming out. As I started to realize that my arm was really stuck, I won’t say that my life flashed before my eyes, but I was pretty shocked.  I knew I had to get my arm out of the machine, and hopefully before my mother came around the corner and saw it.  I was worried that if she found me with my arm stuck in a candy machine, she would kill me.

No such luck with my mother not finding me.  She rounded the corner, and there I was, holding hands with my mechanical friend.  Of course Mom ordered me to “stop fooling around! You’re not being funny! Take your arm out of the gumball machine right away!”  It didn’t take long for her to find out that neither the gumballs nor I were going anywhere soon.

After the initial shock came a million suggestions from my siblings for removing my arm.  I think that I should also mention at this time that problem solving was not a strong suit for my family.  I’m not sure what suggestion was the best or the worst, but in hindsight they all seemed pretty bad.  The suggestions did include putting a quarter in the machine to see if it would then release my arm.  Of course it wasn’t that easy, as we found out when the mechanical bandit stole my Mom’s quarter.

My sister Kathy mentioned “why don’t we grab butter from aisle 5 and slop it up your arm so it will slide out of the machine?”  The manager of the grocery store nixed that idea before we could try it.  I think he felt his butter was more important than my arm.  However, it was my brother Billy’s suggestion that really started the next emotional stage of my ordeal, which was fear.

Billy’s suggestion was really more of a question.  He asked “does she really even need her left arm anyway?  After all, she is right handed and she would still be able to go to school.”  At that point I knew I wasn’t going anywhere for a while.  How long I was going to be in the store was the question.  Could it be ten minutes, ten hours, ten days, or ten years?

As the seconds became minutes and the minutes became an hour, I was still stuck in the store and the next stage of my adventure began.  The fire department came to rescue me.  Unfortunately, their idea of rescue involved smashing the gumball machine with the Jaws of Life. Needless to say, I did not feel that was a very good solution, which led to my tears. 

I think that my mother had just about enough of things at this point in time too.  There was a dinner to cook, laundry to be washed and homework to be done.  There was no time for this nonsense. She reached down, wiggled my arm left then right, gave a couple of tugs and out came my arm.  Unbelievable!  She was a Miracle Worker!

The drive home from the grocery store was quieter than usual, with the engine of the family station wagon making more noise than any of the kids.  The afternoon also had a comic yet tragic ending for me, as I never did get my gumball.  I guess life isn’t always fair.

Although it happened many years ago, I still fondly remember the gumball machine incident.  I suppose there are a lot of lessons to learn from this adventure, but I think the most important one to me was next time, just put a quarter in the machine to get the gumball.

I think everybody has gumball stories in their life just like my Aunt did.  Just when you think it’s going to be another ordinary day, something crazy happens that you might remember for the rest of your life.  I hope that I have plenty of my own gumball stories in my life.