chuck e. cheese - ever heard of him?

my nephew, spencer has and he was uber excited when we all met up for his birthday at mr. cheese's place. i remember being spencer's age. my fascintation with chuck e. and his friends was absolute. you remember them, don't you? the big animals on the stage that dance by turning their head's half a centimeter and moving there hands one full centimeter. they sing too. remember? at a young age i was enamored by these performances. i thought the animals were larger than life. now...well, i think they are a bit frightening. the kids love them though. jack was drooling with joy and spencer couldn't stop clapping and jumping up and down. it was GREAT! do you remember the pizza at chuck e. cheese's? it is like glorified frozen pizza. as a kid, it takes like a gourmet delight. and the games? nothing is better than skee ball, right?

as i go back over and read this post, i realize i may sound a bit cynical. that is not the intent at all. i had an absolutely wonderful time at chuck e. cheese's. i am just trying to paint the picture, and remind myself, of the simplicity of a child's joy. as a kid, i had no complaints about the food, entertainment, or atmosphere of chuck e. cheese. in fact, it was much the opposite. i thought we had made it in life when we were at chuck e. cheese. i was on top of the world. jack and spencer were much the same. and really, i actually was too. being with my family, where ever it may be, is the top of the world for me. my dad and mom bought tokens that they distributed amongst the masses. as it should have been, spencer received the largest sum of tokens. christian and i got a few. we found a game that we loved. it wasn't your conventional game. we didn't even have to put a token in to play. we found one of those games that you smack the animals head as it pops up. when you hit their head you get a point. well, as we were looking at the game we saw that some tokens had fallen down inside the cracks between the animal and the bottom of the game. we decided to try and fish the tokens out. it was so funny. two 30 something year old "kids" sneaking tokens out of the cracks of the game. christian was the winner. his skills at this game were well developed and his motivations were high. he was an inspiration to me as i fished out a couple of them. i think when we tallied it all up, christian got 5 tokens out of the game and i retrieved two. it was such a rush! we used those tokens to play a pinball type game that guaranteed a lot of success. success equals tickets for prizes, and this game yielded success. the end result, lots of tickets for the birthday boy to win a great prize. what a night. next time you are thinking of a great date night, might i suggest chuck e. cheese? it's a rather romantic place.