Chuck E. Cheese Was My Childhood:

I'm getting older.  My memory is going I think.  I'm just 30, but I'm pretty sure I have memory failure.  My guess is that it's from a decade of caffeine, cheap pizza, and seizure causing strength flashing lights.  Yeah, where a kid can be a kid.  (And a parent can go broke.)

I think my memory is going because I can't remember how many days ago I started wanting to find a piece of my childhood.  I know it was after the Amazon App Store handed me a free Skee-ball game but, I don't think it was as recent as last night.  Somewhere in the last two weeks I started jonesing for some skee-ball.

This kid has no respect for the game.

I remember my mom would tout her skee-ball skills to me whenever we went.  She won most the tickets in our family.  She's not just blowing smoke, my mom is pretty awesome at skee-ball.  I still have grocery bags full of tickets that we were saving up for me and my sister to purchase some stupid thing that would have cost $15 across the street at the mall.

Having skee-ball fever eventually turned one night into a genuine hunt for a skee-ball game that I could purchase and place in my basement so that I could master the game and go pro.  (There is pro skee-ball, right?)

The roar of the crowd!  The skee of the ball!

Google quickly informed me that I would not be purchasing a skee-ball game and just that quickly my dreams of being on a Wheaties box were dashed.  I think the cheapest I could find was one for almost $2,000 American Dollars.  If you wanted to get a big six-banger whole-wall-covering behemoth it would run around $5,000.  But, what's weird is after I searched for that the internet began sending me a sign that maybe it's not time to give up on my dream.

My first bit of evidence came from a youtube video that was on the front page of Youtube Trends (which I love).  It's short so just watch it here.

How could that be anything other than a sign?  Except that looks like it would be almost no fun at all.  But, it gives out tickets!  I haven't bid on it yet and neither has anyone else, but there are still four days left on the auction.  Alas, even a miniature Skee-ball game will end up running me from $500 to $1500.  It seems that the price point just won't get within my part-time salary range.

And then, as if by beacon from on high, this news story jumped out at me. 

"Chuck E. Cheese Sued For Promoting Gambling With Kids"

Mr. Cheese is working hard for my attention now.  Ultimately, the article asked is summed up in this question.

Still, the suit does raise an interesting question: Does a child's desire to win a plastic pterodactyl by playing Wack-A-Mole really send the little nipper down the slippery slope to gambling addiction that ends with them betting their mortgage payment on red at the local Native American casino?

While I can personally tell you I haven't ever gambled it all away in a casino, I can't say that I haven't wanted to gamble.  Who knows if my slight urge to gamble comes from all those days spent rolling wooden balls up the board to the point giving cups?  Either way, the article is worth a full read, here.

Maybe my dreams of Skee-ball dominance are dead or maybe they're just starting, it's hard to tell.  But, if  I suddenly go on a gambling bender you'll know who to blame, Mr. Cheese.

Oh, and all that talk earlier about memory loss, maybe it's not so bad because writing this reminded me of one of my oldest memories.  When I was maybe four years old my mom would take me to Showbiz Pizza (which may have noticed is not Chuck E. Cheese) and they were pretty much set up exactly the same as Mr. Cheese's but with one notable difference.  Off in it's own room was this animatronic dog dressed up like Elvis who would sing if you pushed a button on the wall.  I remember that my mom held me up so I could press the button to make him start moving and singing, then she held me up while I pressed it for another half hour.  I was completely amazed by that thing.

My tiny, eighty pound, mom held me up so I could press a button and hear a song over and over for half an hour.  I'm glad I remembered that.  My mom is pretty cool.  I did not expect to have a revelation about my mom at the start of this, but I'm going to go let her know I appreciate her.  Maybe you should do the same.