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9:40 a.m. - 2005-08-12
Chuck E. Cheese continued...
Back to the Chuck E. Cheese adventure...

We get back to my parent shouse to wait for Kevin. If you know Kevin you know that he is sometimes (sometimes in this case is being used as a euphamism for ALMOST ALWAYS) late. He calls from his cell and gives me his coordinates. I am relieved. I only have to entertain this five year old who is so excited she might pee her pants for 20 more minutes. I have come prepared with a gigantic Finding Nemo coloring book and my wonderful mother has become one of those people that has an entire basket full of kid friendly materials such as the big 64 pack of crayons.

When is the last time you colored? If you answered "more than five years ago" I recommend you head out to your nearest K-Mart and make an investment in your mental health via the Crayola aisle.

So we colored for about 18 minutes. And then the "WHERE IS KEVIN?" started. LOUD. It was actually kind of funny because I have had similar thoughts at times...

Kevin showed up almost exactly when I expected him and off we went. A short drive and we arrived as three of only about twenty people there. Several long tables were set up for birthday parties. Alison commented on the fact that we had not been invited to these parties. She, being a very social and popular child, seemed a bit miffed. As people filtered in, it surprised me to see that the mothers of the 3-6 year olds were all about my age. Most seemed single and were dressed like they were going clubbing. I only saw about three fathers the whole time. Two guys who looked like rappers, who sat off to the side and ignored everyone else and one european dad in tight jeans with Oakleys on his head. When I see a young child and an adult, I generally assume it's a parent and child. Just like when I see a male and female of similar age together, I assume they're a couple. So, being there with Kevin and Alison, I assume we looked like mom, dad and adorable child. I wonder if we looked like we knew what we were doing. Kevin was particularly talented at unsticking stuck tokens and willingly posed in about 9 pictures with Alison driving a car next to Chuck E. Cheese (a cute little ride that only costs a token and spits out a thin black and white photo at the end.)

Alison loved it all. I, frankly, was disappointed in the whole thing. I remembered it being so much bigger and so much more wonderous. I remember that "show" they do being just amazing...and how it happens only every 15 minutes or whatever and how when the show isn't going on, the big stuffed creatures are still but every once in a while their eyes blink open and shut to fuel the anticipation. I recalled it being like a real concert. But as I watched it the other day, it looked like a bunch of big, old, worn, stuffed puppets flapping their foam lips to somebody's portable cd player. It was awful.

Some of the games were cool enough, and Alison definitely seemed to like them. But the "rides" sucked. The worlds smallest and slowest Merry Go Round, and some bike ride that moved up and down which was somewhat interesting. But what happened to that tunnel thing? That was the best thing ever...hiding in that tunnel, you believed your parents would NEVER find you. No tunnel.

Additionally the place was under construction. There was duct tape all around, climbing areas blocked off by upside down chairs and plastic runners everywhere. Where was the magic?? And where in heaven's name was the ball pit???

Alison was fairly well behaved. There was only one rogue ski ball incident. She did get scammed by some greedy little girl who told Alison she didn't have any tokens left. Alison came running over to me, wide eyed with disbelief that there could be any such thing as not enough tokens so early in the evening(I had purchased 40 and got another 38 free and actually had to secretly put some in my pocket because I knew we weren't leaving until that cup was empty. I let Alison "share" one token with that little scamp and gave her a little evil eye.

We did manage to get Alison to sit down and eat approximately 9 bites of pizza. At the end, when it was time to pick out the prizes, we had a little bit of an issue. What a crime to put all of those ridiculously "priced" stuffed animals in front of a kid who has played hard all evening and only has 80 tickets. The watermelon sized stuffed animals were, like, 2,000 tickets. She finally settled on a purple Chuck E. Cheese paper eye mask with one of those elastic straps that I used to either get stuck in my hair or "snap" myself with and a candy bracelet. Not bad.

On the way home, she concocted a pretty hilarious story about how there are these creatures called Sea Bears that live under ground. You are safe from them unless you listen to music, wear a hat or eat outside. Unless you are at a picnic, in which case it is ok to eat outside. Oh, and singing also provokes them, unless you are camping, in which case it is ok to sing. At one point, Kevin made up a song about Sea Bears and sang it to Alison, obviously forgetting that singing attracts Sea Bears. Then, she insisted that when she had the mask over her eyes we had to pretend we didn't know her. And we'd have to say "Who are you?" and she would say "A superhero." Then she would rip off her mask and we'd have to go "Oh! Alison! There you are!"

It's so funny to me how amusing "Let's Pretend" is for kids. They know it's not real, because it was their idea...maybe it's the same thing that makes Chuck E. Cheese wonderful in the first place. The thinly vieled illusion is just enough to make them believe for a little while that life isn't hard and boring and frustrating all of the time...

They have stuff like this for adults. I think it's called Crack.

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