Yesterday, we hosted our very first Chuck E. Cheese Birthday Party. It will go down in the birthday history book as a success, everyone had a nice time and was well behaved, but I was left with a bad feeling in my gut …
Immediately, I realized why they call the mascot, Chuck. It’s in honor of the hundreds of tokens my kids “chucked” into their machines. On top of the 20 tokens included in the “Emperor’s” Package of birthday parties, the dozen little risk-takers managed to go through two hundred more. Actual cost of 200 extra tokens - $30.00 **with coupon.
The image of my young son depositing coins like a madman and chewing on a Twizzler was tantamount to watching my Mother, pulling slots and smoking a cigarette on a trip to Atlantic City. They both had the same wild-eyed look … only his payout would be tickets while hers would be a comp’d weekend, airfare included, and a plastic bucket full of shiny, new quarters.
The cherry coke flowed like whiskey sours and the tokens disappeared like dollar bills at a strip club. Tickets were bulging out of pockets and hanging around their necks as they ran from machine to machine, getting another digital-beeping-fix. Skee balls roared and tears were shed as the machine’s ticket-spewing mechanism jammed time after time. Unlike a real pit boss, the arcade attendant was quick to shove the scrunched and torn tickets removed from the machines into the greedy and sticky little hands of his eager clientele.
I started to wonder about the lesson of Chuck E. Cheese … what it’s teaching our babies, but there wasn’t much time … it was time for the “show”. Not Celine or Barry … just more Chuckie. Accompanied by our “hostess”, they sang half a dozen off-key songs. (I wondered if this was included in the package or if it was an add-on???) They kids were spinning and clapping … I was just waiting for one of the girls to rip off her undershirt and throw it at Chuckie with the understanding that he would inhale it deeply and shove it down his pants a la Tom Jones. Thank God, that didn’t happen.
After the gifts were opened and the cake was eaten, it was finally time to get the hell out of there and I was thrilled, until I was handed the bill. I folded it into a tight little square and sent the Hubs to pay at the register awaiting the scream of, “Somebody Call 911”. He managed to avoid a stroke, but I heard him on the phone as he walked back over to our party booth. I believe the exact quote goes something like this, “I just got screwed by Chuck E. Cheese and I didn’t even get kissed.”
We cashed in our chips … er, tickets, and proceeded to pick out tiny, plastic treasures destined to break or be lost before exiting the establishment. As they checked our fluorescent numbered hands, my son asked, “Can we come back tomorrow?”
I guess what they said in The Color of Money applies, “tickets won are twice as sweet as tickets earned” … umm, money … I mean money won.
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