Iowa Man Fired For Using Forklift To Dislodge Twix Bar Stuck In Vending Machine

Everybody has lost a candy bar to a stubborn vending machine. You might shake it, punch it and let off a few curses in its direction, but would you go as far as to commandeer a forklift to get your prized Twix bar? One Iowan did.

Robert McKevitt, 27, of Spirit Lake was working the second shift at the Polaris Industries warehouse in Milford when he took a break and headed for the on-site candy bar vending machine. Just as everyone fears when face to face with a vending machine, his Twix bar got caught on one of those spiral hooks from Hell as it descended.

“I was, like ‘Oh, man,” said McKevitt to the Des Moines Register, “So I put in another dollar, and then it wouldn’t do anything.”

With his Twix still hanging precariously from the offending hook and his patience completely lost, McKevitt took a drastic measure and drove over an 8,000-pound forklift to convince the machine to give up his Twix.

McKevitt says he only brought over the forklift to put the vending machine back in place, but Polaris said he lifted and dropped the vending machine from two feet off the ground at least six times.

The machine coughed up three Twix bars, but a manager confronted him and he was fired five days later.

McKevitt won’t get unemployment benefits. He told the Des Moines Register that he heard the warehouse now has all new vending machines, probably ones that don’t require a forklift to properly operate.