Where are all the gumball machines?

What’s taken their place?

Why isn’t anyone talking about this?

How can we stand to live in a world without gumball machines?

What are we supposed to chew—regular gum?

Who’s to blame for this?

Who’s really to blame for this?

Is it Big Gumball?

Did they get too greedy?

Were they not greedy enough?

How much would a gumball cost with inflation?

Can a person feed their family with pocket change?

Whatever happened to coins?

Do they still make state quarters?

If the moon becomes the U.S.A.’s fifty-second state, how long will it take before we can get our hands on the commemorative quarter?

If the moon were on a quarter, would it just look like a tribute to a smaller quarter?

Do quarters look like tiny moons?

Who’s the wise guy who told me that the U.S.A. already has a fifty-first state (Staten Island)?

Shouldn’t it, technically speaking, count as a state because—again, technically speaking—“state” is in the name?

No?

Why did gumball machines even look like that to begin with?

Why didn’t they just have a box with “gumballs” and “suggested donation: twenty-five cents” written on it?

Does anyone ever pay the full suggested donation?

If you actually spent a night at the museum, would everything really come to life once the museum closed or is that yet another Hollywood fiction I’ve held on to, like having a wife who’s happy to see me when I come home with a briefcase full of office supplies?

Whatever happened to briefcases?

What about filing cabinets?

Would it be fair to say that filing cabinets are pretty much the gumball machines of corporate culture—if you don’t count water coolers or one of the last remaining gumball machines in those wacky startups that might actually have them as a nod to the youthful, carefree energy they’re trying to sell?

Do they even care about gumball machines?

Does anyone care about gumball machines?

Who says that I care about gumball machines?

Why would I care about gumball machines?

What, you can’t ask questions anymore? ♦