After a long and terrible battle with electrical shorts, a burnt out refrigeration unit, and a bill acceptor that like as not would turn your bills into confetti, our beloved Coke machine has been "unplugged" from life support in a touching ceremony in the PhD mailroom where it has lived and reigned over us with a gentle enlightened hand lo these many years. As the Coke machine not-so-quietly reflected on its life in its last moments with a horrible arcing buzz, the High Coke Machine Repair Man James said, "I'd better unplug it," and I, following the ancient cant set down in the old scrolls of the Coke rites and ceremonies established by the proud order of the Coke Czarship in the Golden Age of Carbonation, sucked on my teeth briefly and replied "yeah." Then, at roughly 2 PM, Monday December 4 2006 (Gregorian calendar) the machine sputtered its last and was still.

Those that wish to pay their respects may visit the PhD mailroom, where the deceased machine shall lie in state while a tomb suitable to its high stature is being constructed. There have been, in the course of recorded department history, some items of power that have cast shadows across Upson. The Coke machine, on the contrary, was a fountain of light and of hope. And Coke. Actually, just Coke. When it was kept stocked, anyway. Otherwise it just blinked the "out of stock" light at you, as if in sympathy to your despairing sighs.

It was, if I interpreted its last words correctly, the final wish of the Coke machine that we think of it often in the days to come, and remember it fondly. Let us reflect on the good things of its life, and forgive it its money stealing ways, its tendency to refrigerate anywhere from below freezing to room temperature, and for reliably being out of what you wanted. Yea, I say unto you, let us forgive it its flaws, and remember it henceforth for the joy it brought into our life these many years, not the grief and piping hot Coke it spitefully served at the last weeks of its service.

It shall be anywhere from a week to a month before we actually get it repaired or (more likely) entirely replaced. In the meantime I'd suggest drinking some undiluted stop bath to get the same charming acidic burns on your teeth.

The Coke machine is dead. Long live the Coke Czar!