Jingle of Coins Read Free Page A

machines!
    Chuckling, she strolled down the aisle and after making sure nobody wanted it, selected a nickel machine on the back wall. It didn't take long to flag a roving change person and purchase ten dollars worth of nickels. Emily fed the coins into the slot machine one at a time, noting that the machine made an odd sound every time the reels spun and symbols appeared on the pay lines. With each successive nickel the noise grew louder, and she wondered if one of her coins was stuck on the inside. Frowning at the grinding noise, she turned to the man on her left. "Does my machine sound funny to you?” she asked. “It's making a strange noise."
    He stopped shoving nickels into his machine and leaned closer. "What noise?"
    "It happens when I press the ‘spin’ button. Wait, I'll show you." She dropped a coin into the machine, pressed the button, and waited. Sure enough, her machine made a funny grinding noise.
    “Try it again. I don’t hear anything.” Getting out of his chair, he nudged Emily aside, then leaned forward and placed his head against the front panel of her machine. Emily dropped five coins into the coin slot, pulled the handle, and waited. The machine whirred, three bars lined up on the pay line, and once again she heard the odd buzz.
    Straitening, the man shook his head. "Sorry, lady, but I don't hear anything.” He reclaimed his machine, dropped in a few coins, and pulled the handle. He moved closer, listened until the slot machine completed its cycle, and then straightened. “My machine's making more racket than yours." Gesturing with one hand, he continued to drop nickels into the coin slot. “Don’t worry about the noise; just play it till it quits. If it breaks, they have people to come fix it. Just play.”
    "Thanks." Emily thought about moving to a different machine, but decided to stay where she was. “Okay, here goes. My last five nickels. Maybe the Goddess of Chance will shine on me and I’ll win.”
    The man laughed. “That’s the idea. Somebody’s gotta win. Just keep shoving those coins in. These things are gonna pay off sometime. If you don’t play, you can’t win.”
    She dropped in her last few coins and pulled the handle. Her machine still made noise, but this time it was on a much higher pitch. Even with her hearing aides in, the sound hurt, causing her to clap her hands over her ears. To her surprise, the lights on top of the slot machine blinked, bells whistled, and her machine blared out a loud tune. The winning symbol combination had lined up! Emily watched as the machine spit out nickel after nickel, and listened to the coins make a ting, ting, ting sound as they bounced into the metal tray below.
    "Hey, lady. You hit the jackpot!" the man next to her shouted. "You won a thousand nickels!"
    She grinned back at him. "I can’t believe it! This is the first time I've ever played the slots," she confessed. "How much is a thousand nickels?"
    "Fifty bucks."
    She felt her mouth drop. "What? Fifty bucks? That's all? Look at the machine. It's still dumping out coins! Are you sure a thousand nickels is only fifty bucks?"
    He nodded. "Yeah, I'm sure. Don't knock it. At least you won something. I've been sitting here for over an hour, and I'm already out eighty bucks." He lowered his voice. "Since you’re a first timer, I'm gonna give you some advice. Don’t ever walk away from a machine until after the reels stop spinning. Somebody else could claim your money. And don’t put too much money back into that machine now that you’ve won. Once a machine hits the jackpot, it usually doesn't pay off again."
    She patted his arm. "Thanks. I'll try another one once it finishes dumping my nickels.” A few minutes later she scooped her coins into a large plastic bucket, then roamed the aisles until she found an open machine. As Emily dropped coins into the slot, she listened for the sounds she’d heard before, but this time all she heard was the whirr, whirr, whirr of the reels as they