"Can I have a party at Chuck E. Cheese's?"
"No! NO! Anything but that...!"
"But you said!"
Ah, Chuck E. Cheese's, America's premier restaurant-arcade thing. There's an evolution to our visits here that began with Pete just looking at the bright flashy machines, not realising that you could put money in and get tickets out. Then he went to a party (thanks, Muckers) and discovered you could actually play on these things. Then it became an occasional treat for very special events, like graduation or a grandparent visit. And now we've had a birthday party here. I hope this is the natural end of all this nonsense.
A birthday party gives you many additional benefits to walking in off the street, such as two hours of unlimited play, and pizza, and a personal visit from a giant mouse, and then the ticket blaster! Thankfully Pete was persuaded to only invite his very best friends, because you don't need oversized vermin to gnaw through the dollars in your wallet at this place. Remember when birthday parties were a game of musical chairs in the living room and a piece of dry sponge cake? Not anymore.
Not that Dad's mumblings about birthdays past mattered one jot to Pete or his friends, who ran around like crazies. It certainly didn't matter to the parents, most of whom come from the hyper-competitive oil industry and so must win as many tickets as possible! I admit that I enjoyed demonstrating my prowess on a game where you had to get ten monkeys to swing in unison. I was rewarded with 60 tickets.
And what of these tickets? Well, save up enough and you can get fabulous prizes, like a plastic spinning top for 25 tickets, or a mini-sheet of stickers for 50. Somehow we managed to accrue THREE THOUSAND tickets in our time there. What would we get? A car? A boat? A family holiday? No, a fluffy yellow teddy bear.
Given the outpouring of happiness from all involved, I can only judge the party a massive success. It looks like we might be back next year! Joy.
Birthday boy.
A little competitiveness with school friend Elena.
And then the rodent arrived!
Sebas takes to the slopes.
Emilia with her ultra-competitive Dad.
But not as competitive as a certain Mum.
Friends together.
Wack-a-frog.
The pest problem is really bad here.
Ticket blaster. Or death-by-a-thousand-paper-cuts as I call it.
Hannah does the accounting work.
Here's what you could have won...
