Sometimes I wish I were young again. I wouldn’t have to work, I would get crust-free sandwiches cut in triangles, I would watch Perfect Strangers reruns all day. Then again, there are some downsides to being young and tiny – because a small stature makes it easier to get stuck inside vending machines.

As reported by the Associated Press:

ANTIGO, Wis. - Three-year-old Robert Moore went fishing for a stuffed replica of Sponge Bob and ended up trapped in a vending machine. “I told him I could get it for him,” his grandmother said. “He’s a character. He said, ‘Oh no, I can get it.’” When she turned her back to get another dollar for a second try, Robert took off his coat and squeezed through an opening in the machine. He landed in the stuffed animal cube. FULL STORY

The vending-machine escapade reminds me of that old Twilight Zone episode where Bookworm Guy is sick of being distracted from his reading, so he goes into the bowels of a library. While he’s down there, nuclear war is unleashed, killing the rest of the planet.

‘Finally!’ he exclaims. ‘Now I’ll have time for my books.’

Then he breaks his glasses and the show ends with him wailing in agony, showing the ironic plight of Bookworm Guy.

This is just like that. Except it’s a vending machine, not a nuclear holocaust. And the kid doesn’t end up a broken, twisted shell of a human being. And the point was to get SpongeBob, not a stack of books.

Nevermind. This is nothing like that episode.

But the kid didn’t get his SpongeBob … so maybe there is some irony in this story, after all.