Today Wyatt and I met up with Dorothy and Marianne and their kids for a playdate at Chuck E Cheese. What better way to spend the morning than killing a couple of hours with a giant mouse, screaming kids and tokens that buy 12.7 seconds of fun? The whizzing, dinging and stimulation overload is enough to give anyone a headache, but the kids seem to enjoy it so we power through.
There were two bullies monopolizing one of the
best games, Jett Rider, a two-seater virtual reality experience that simulates flying or a rollercoaster, your choice. I'm not exaggerating when I tell you they were easily on this thing for 20 minutes. They would occasionally feed it tokens, but sometimes they'd just stare at the demo screen that said "insert tokens now" until one of them finally yelled "MOM!", at which point their mother would impatiently stop her conversation with her girlfriends and shuffle over to deposit another coin in the slot, then shuffle back, without saying a word. There were a bunch of kids standing around, just watching the screen and also patiently waiting their turn, Wyatt and Josh were among them. Anytime one of the kids got too close, the younger boy (I'm guessing about age 5) would reach over and give them a good, hard shove. After watching both Wyatt and Josh get pushed by this bully, and realizing his mother had zero interest in his actions, I decided I'd had enough. I said to him nicely "You've had a really long turn. Let's let someone else have a chance to play now". The older kid actually listened and climbed down, but the younger one stood his ground. He said "Someone can sit next to me if they want to play". I explained that he should climb down and let two new people sit together to do the game. I was pretty sure no one wanted to sit next to this bully. Not only was he scary, but I had also seen him eating a booger earlier (I swear I'm not making this up). He looked at me and said "I'm not leaving. I'm a BIG boy!" Ok, that's it, no more mister nice guy. I leaned in close to him, partly for the effect, but also so his mom wouldn't hear and said "Oh yeah? Well, I'm BIG too and I'm bigger than you. Now it's time for you to move along and let someone else have a turn!" He stared at me for about 10 seconds, then mumbled something inaudible and climbed down from the game. Seriously.
Bullies or no bullies, the kids seem to enjoy the experience. Sometimes they didn't even have any tokens, but they didn't seem to mind. They just watched other kids playing or stared at the demos. They ran excitedly from one game to the next. I even played a couple of games with Wyatt, including a driving game that kind of reminded me of Pole Position. Remember that one? It turns out my skills haven't improved much since the 80's but it was still fun.
Finally, I decided we'd had enough. We decided to forgo the mediocre (at best) pizza and head home for lunch. I knew I'd encounter some resistance when it was time to leave and sure enough, Wyatt was not ready to go. By the time we made our way to the door, Wyatt was pretty upset and grumbling his displeasure over leaving. For security purposes, they stamp your wrist and your child's wrist with the same number in a special ink that can be viewed under a black light. When you leave, a staff member must check your stamps to be sure your numbers match. I showed the young woman my stamp. When she asked to see Wyatt's stamp, he yelled an empathic "NO!" and held his coat in place over his wrist so she couldn't look. She bent down and said "Ok, I need to ask you a question then. Is this your mommy?" WYATT: "NO!" ME (patience dwindling fast): "Wyatt, tell the nice lady the truth. Tell her I'm your mommy." WYATT: "NO! NO MOMMY!" Seriously kid? I wrestled with him a little, yanked up his sleeve so she could compare numbers, she gave me a nod and we were on our way. Ah, good times...
Wyatt and Josh finally getting to enjoy their turn on the Jett Rider game
They couldn't peel their retinas away from the screen!
4 comments:
I love every single word of this post! Too funny! Hip Hip Hooray for Chuck E. Cheese, right?!?
Another entertaining read from you Chels. Your story about leaving makes me laugh too because Brian used to yell "child abuse" whenever we were in public and my mother was trying to discipline him. Sadly he wasn't 2.5 yrs old, more like 8-10!
I remember my mom threatening to spank my brother (which people DID do back then and in public) when he was acting up. He would tell her "you can't spank me, mom, that's child abuse!" Seriously, where do kids come up with this stuff?
We just got back from our mystery trip and it is early this morning but I sure got a good laugh about leaving Chunky Cheese. I remember taking Sarah, our oldest grand daughter, when she was one to Chunky Cheese. She was a talker and everyone was amazed at how little she was and how she could talk. By the way, we went to Tenn and Alabama. It was a good trip and now I'm getting ready to go to Europe on the 11th for a river cruise to celebrate our 55th Anniversary.
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