You can tell a lot about a place by the vending machines.

When I worked in a lab in New York City, I was slightly amazed by the vending machine that dispensed hot pizza. It was more expensive than and vastly inferior in flavor to the cinnamon raisin bagels with cream cheese I bought each day on the street outside the building, but I still thought the concept was pretty nifty: whiz-bang technology allowing people to grab a hot meal at 2 a.m. when the cafeteria's closed.

Now I'm in the Delta, and the gas station two blocks from my house has a machine outside that sells live bait.