Buy A Kid from a Vending Machine?

Three-year-old Robert Moore went fishing for a stuffed replica of Sponge Bob and ended up trapped in a vending machine. The toddler’s adventure began with a Saturday evening shopping trip with his grandmother, Fredricka Bierdemann, and three siblings.

Bierdemann ended the trip by giving each child a dollar and telling them to have fun in a retailer’s game room. A stuffed Sponge Bob in a vending machine’s bin caught Robert’s eye. He tried without success to fish it out with a plastic crane. “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.

“I turned around and looked for him, and he said, ‘Oma, I’m in here,” Bierdemann said. “I thought I would have a heart attack.”