Four Adults & an Arcade

Four adults spending an entire afternoon at the arcade sounds creepy… But that’s how I spent a cold February day last week and it was nothing less than awesome.  Sean, brother James, his beautiful girlfriend Meredith, and I wanted to play put-put golf… but it was too cold and the course was closed… Our next idea was bowling… but when we got there the lanes had a major waiting list and none of us wanted to wait… so we wandered down a long hallway beside the bowling alley to the mother of all arcades. It was glorious. It was loud. It was bright. And it was addictive. Before long we were spending good money on tokens and running around like a bunch of middle schoolers.  Skee ball, wheel of fortune, air hockey, motorcycle races… it was never ending.

We were winning tickets.  MAJOR TICKETS.  We decided to try to win as many tickets as possible and then give them to an unsuspecting kid before we left.  This mission gave us a purpose… and when Meredith somehow won 1,000 tickets off of a 3-token game, we knew heaven was on our side.

Eventually we ran out of tokens, and with thousands of tickets on hand, we began our search for the right recipient.  Eventually we found him.  A small 5 year old boy quietly playing a game in his mother’s lap.  Meredith walked over with the tickets and asked the mother, “Would he like these? We were just here to have fun and don’t want them.”  She looked up like we were offering her a million dollars…  “What?? No way!??!??” She leaned into her son and said, “Can you believe this?? Can you believe this?!??!!!?”  The mom put the tickets in her son’s lap and he looked like he had seen a ghost.  A happy ghost… a fun ghost like Casper or something... there must be a better metaphor for this situation.

It was a ton of fun.  If I ever throw myself a birthday party, I may suggest we all go to the arcade… pool our tickets and give them away… too much fun.  In fact, it was so much fun that I went yesterday by myself on my way home from running errands.  Just kidding.  Now an adult at an arcade by themselves…. that is creepy.

Enjoy your Tuesday Peeps!