Azuki Panda

So I went to go do some laundry at the school dorms just now (I don’t actually live at the dorms anymore, but the laundry machines are nice and it’s pretty cheap) and my school card got declined. It has a magnetic stripe that allows it to be used for access to buildings as well as used as a means of payment. The only problem with magnetic stripes is that apparently they get worn down over time. I’ve had mine for four years and it seems like there’s an area of it that’s a bit scuffed so that might be the problem.

The school has actually been making the move toward using the card’s RFID chip for proximity RFID readers for building access instead of having to swipe the magnetic stripe. This makes it easier since you don’t have to actually take the card out but it also leads to some humorous sights such as people with the card in their backpack swinging around and jumping to get it to read the card.

So the worst part about the card is that I was now left without a means of paying for the laundry machines since I did not forsee this issue. I saw the vending machines and thought I could use them to get some quarters. After putting in a dollar and pressing the coin return button I was rewarded by the sound of change dropping down. One, two, three, four coins….five coins, six…. at this point I was wondering if I was getting more than a dollar back. Much to my dismay, when I opened the coin slot they were all dimes. This was of no help since the machines only took quarters. I managed to find 5 quarters but I needed to do two loads of laundry at $1 each and also use the drier which is 75 cents. Luckily there was another guy there who had just gotten $10 worth of quarters and let me get $2 worth of quarters from him in exchange for cash.

Is it that much to ask that the vending machines next to the laundry machines give quarters in change?