The Horror of Chucky

The Kerr family took a trek to Chuck E Cheese last week.  This is a special reward for a good week at school for the kids.

There are events in life that result in a wide chasm between the good mood of the kids and the bad mood of the parents.  Chuck E Cheese provides the biggest chasm in existence I believe.  Chuck E Cheese is filled with elated children all high on adrenaline and sugar, and weary parents who are wandering around, wondering how they ended up there.  But Kristie and I will put up with the bad pizza, the mass of hyper kids, the muggy sweaty scent and the over unsanitary ambiance of the place for the joy it brings to our kids.

The fun of Chuck is the game tokens you get with your meal.  These game tokens can be used in various video and carnival type games.  When you do well at some of these games, you earn prize tickets.  You then cap off the evening by cashing in the prize tickets for your prizes… like candy or cheap toys that could easily be purchased at the local dollar store for much less than the bill at Chuck, but that's not near as much fun.  The whole process is like a microcosm of capitalism right there in the Burnsville Mall.

Here’s the deal with the games…  They’re kids games.  But there is no shortage of adults who see these games as sort of a mini Jr casino and dominate the games with their cup full of tokens and fists full of prize tickets.  I’m not sure what they think they’re going to win, but there they are, playing the odds at the color wheel game (think roulette) with coin after coin awaiting the big payout of tickets and rejoicing more than a little too loudly when they get it.

So my thought is this… isn’t there an easier way to obtain a dollar’s worth of cheap toys and prizes?  What are the children thinking as Mom and Dad hoard all the tokens?  Do these ‘grown ups’ even have kids?  Or do they just sneak in whenever they get a hunch that the Fastest Finger machine is going to pay out?