To have made DD give back the vending machine freebie?

[BlowDryRat]

DH thinks I am.

I allowed DD to buy some crisps from the vending machine at the swimming pool after her lesson. I paid for one packet. It dispensed two. I made her give the second one back to a nearby member of staff.

The leisure centre staff look after the vending machines and could restock it, so it would have felt dishonest to walk off with both packs. I wouldn't be bothered if it wasn't obvious who to give it to.

Was I right or a right mean mother?

It was a packet of crisps, not a £50 note. No-one was going to be sacked because it was missing. I would have taken it as a gift and kept it. As others have said, it can go either way with vending machines,

Yanbu

I’d have kept it and we’d have a packet each, some days are just ‘winning at life’ days (as per DD). They make up for the days when the vending machine steals your pound coin and your dying if thirst for a can of Tango.

I would've kept the crisps personally. The number of times I've put money into vending machines that then haven't dispensed the product...i'd just see it as vending machine karma.

As another poster said, joyless, joyless and oh so very earnest.

Yeah, I'd have kept them both. Everything evens out in the end. Most of the time, they steal from you. On the rare occasion that they giveth, I graciously accept the freebie.

I would have kept the packet tbh... they make so much money on vending machines and they are a rip off so I would be delighted 😂

I’d have kept it too. It’s not like you stole it. Just one of those things that happens sometimes

I'd have kept it to balance out the occasions where I tried to buy something from a vending machine and it got stuck!!

I don't know about this, it sounds a daft thing to do, but in a mad moment when my kids were younger I may of done the same thing. I had some bad role models growing up, so the thought about something not being paid for, (no matter how small) would linger in my head now, makes me feel a bit of a twit.

I'd have eaten them! 🤣

Nah I think you did the right thing OP; it's normal to be more scrupulous about things like honesty or waiting for the green man or whatever when there's kids about. Plenty of time later for them to work out where they draw their personal moral lines, against a backdrop where they know what's what. Not fucked if that makes me "earnest" TBH.

I think you are teaching your children well.

I love it when that happens! In my mind it makes up for all the times I've not hand change back or my chocolate bar has got stuck. Thoroughly makes my day when something like that happens. I've never considered it theft as the vending machine feels so different to a shop

What? I loved it when it does this. The little things in life ya know, let your kid enjoy the freebie.

You should have kept it. Makes up for all the times you put money in and they deliver nothing.

I remember finding a machine at uni that would give you a carton of ribena and your money back. I think I had had about 50 free ribenas in the course of about a week before they realised and stopped restocking that slot.

This made me laugh! The owners are millionaires. The staff there don't make any money from it. 😂 They probably ate them when you left!

Is this is a wind up?

It is highly unlikely that the staff there do stock the machine, they are usually looked after by external companies and the staff can’t open them at all.

I think you were trying to teach your daughter to be honest when these types of things happen. But these instances also teach us that we can have little victories in life that are harmless and repay us for times when things haven't gone our way in the past and haven't seemed fair.

Everyone knows that Vending machines are the most passive aggressive bastards of all, so when they slip up you are meant to take joy in it.

How often have machines malfunctioned and kept your money? Call it payback!

Is this a joke ?? 😂

I would have kept them, and I’m as law-abiding and goody two-shoes as they come.