Thinking about redecorating your living room? Then consider this. When it comes to home decor perhaps we shouldn’t limit ourselves to choices such as traditional, early American or modern contemporary. What we really need is the "sports stadium concession area look," where the focal points in our living rooms are television screens and personal vending machines. Maytag SkyBox vending machines, listed at $607, have been sold since early this spring. A spokesman for Home Depot, exclusive distributor for the machines, calls them "the ultimate new addition to your family’s home entertainment zone." "It doesn’t require dollar bills or taking eyes off the TV to get your favorite beverage," he added. What’s really exciting for sports fans — as well as people with no decorating sense — is that the machines may be customized on the front and side panels with sports logos from the NFL, NHL, MLB, NASCAR, college and other sports. As a result of the new machines, couch potatoes will no longer have to walk long distances to their kitchens during commercials to retrieve beverages and snack foods. But, why stop there? Perhaps we should move the family’s beds into the living room, where everyone can eat, sleep and drink, all within viewing distance of the TV screen. It’s only a matter of time before home vending machines will take over people’s lives. The following behaviors might help us readily recognize families with vending machine dependencies: You’re invited over to their house for dinner and the menu consists of pre-packaged servings of pretzels and potato chips, cellophane-wrapped chocolate chip cookies and all the cold sodas you can drink. The only nighttime illumination in the living room is provided by the TV and the family’s vending machines. Because of their self-imposed confinements and their general lack of exposure to weather elements and the outside world, all members of the family have skin that strongly resembles unbaked pizza dough. The only member of the family with any physical strength at all is the one delegated to refill the vending machines and to carry out the empty beverage containers on a daily basis. This is most likely the same person given the unpleasant tasks of unloading the dishwasher and cleaning the house from time to time, and she’s not happy about it. The purring and humming of the personal vending machines will replace the need for pets, which require too much time away from the TV screen. Enterprising families will quit their day jobs and install coin and dollar bill slots in their living room vending machines. They will readily open their doors to friends, relatives and strangers who might be passing through their neighborhoods. When personal vending machines are taken to such an extreme, most residential areas will have to be re-zoned as residential/commercial. Students unable to study math and watch TV at the same time will acquire valuable math skills by using the coin-operated vending machines. "If soda sells for 50¢ a can, and I have $2, how many cans can I buy?" Some problems will be easier, but every vending machine purchase will become an educational opportunity. When the popularity of coin-operated, home vending machines increases, the most common question heard in American living rooms, "Where’s the remote?" will be replaced by, "Who has change for a five?"