Patrick del Poker Grande
07-19-2005, 11:32 AM
Alright, so I went to pick up the birthday girl yesterday and then go to Chuck E Cheese's, where my wife would meet us after work. First thing that happens is neither I or her mother could get the car seat out of their minivan. So, it starts off right - with me not driving my WRX (with a car seat in it, though), but rather driving down to CEC in a minivan. Might as well do it right, I suppose. Anyway, she chatted my ear off the whole way down there, telling me all about how we have to do skeeball first and then the game where you throw the balls in the tube and then the fishing game. Alright. I heard all about how she got 'bonked' on the head with a frisbee at her birthday party and everything else. It was a good time.
We get there and the wifey's stuck in traffic and it'll be another 5-10 minutes. Great - now I've got a 4-year-old standing in the lobby at Chuck E Cheese's just looking in. Oh and she's got to to pee now too. I'm just hoping she can hold out until the gender-appropriate guardian gets there.
The Boss gets there, so we run inside and make our way to the restrooms and I spy the coin machine. I was told about about some pizza and coin combo deal, but all that's out the window and forgotten about because it's urgent that we get to the skeeball. Turns out the girl can't even throw the ball hard enough to get it to anything that scores, so I throw half the balls myself and help her throw the rest. That's right, I'm helping a 4-year-old girl throw a ball up the skeeball. Basically, I'm throwing her arm and relying on her motor skills to release the ball at the right time. We nearly beaned the poor woman next to us at least once. There was no time for me to make skeeball mine now, though, because as soon as we're done, it's "this game next", then "this one!" "what one next?" and I've got the token pocket.
Luckily, she's hungry now, so we go order pizza. This is when I remember that there's a deal on pizza and coins. At first, I thought we got ripped off, but then I figured it doesn't really do much for you. You get a pizza, four drinks, and 100 coins for $40. We got the same thing within a dollar or two buying everything separate. We might've even done better. So, the lesson here is don't get taken on this scam.
While we're waiting for the pizza, she decides she wants to go in the huge tube in the sky thing. Fine. I'll only say this about this contraption: If you're going to let your kid go in this thing, be prepared to climb in there yourself, either by child demand or because your kid got up there and to the farthest corner and then freaked out and won't come down. We rounded her up when the pizza got there. It actually wasn't too terribly bad. It was definitely little kid pizza and it was kind of greasy, but it was edible.
The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful. We played every game at least once. I found myself saying "well that's pretty lame" at most of them. Skeeball is definitely the best place to get your tickets. It seems most of the games are set so that you get 4 tickets pretty much regardless of how you do and if you really beat the crap out of it, maybe you get 5 or 6. For instance, she played the little bonk the gopher game and got 4 tickets for hitting about 3 of them. I absolutely dominated that game next, making a fool out of myself hitting every single one of those little fuckers and I got 7 tickets. I recognized that we needed to pile up some more tickets or this girl isn't going to get jack for toys, so I lead the troup back to skeeball. I dominated that thing for an average of about 14 or 15 tickets per game. Unfortunately, I was only able to play 3 games.
We got our little picture drawn and then went over to the toy counter. Boy was I disappointed. I tried to convince her to get the slinkey or the little airplane, but she would have none of it. We ended up with two little bracelets, a Care Bears paper pad, a little frog jumping plastic thing, and some other crap. No mention of army guys or bouncy balls. They didn't even have any!
In summary:
1) Don't worry too much about the pizza+coins deal. You're not losing anything buying everything separate.
2) When you go, you need a dedicated Skeeballer if you want good prizes. All the other games are a rip-off and are pretty lame.
3) Let your kid in the tube in the sky thing at your own risk.
4) Go on a weekday - I'm glad I did.
We get there and the wifey's stuck in traffic and it'll be another 5-10 minutes. Great - now I've got a 4-year-old standing in the lobby at Chuck E Cheese's just looking in. Oh and she's got to to pee now too. I'm just hoping she can hold out until the gender-appropriate guardian gets there.
The Boss gets there, so we run inside and make our way to the restrooms and I spy the coin machine. I was told about about some pizza and coin combo deal, but all that's out the window and forgotten about because it's urgent that we get to the skeeball. Turns out the girl can't even throw the ball hard enough to get it to anything that scores, so I throw half the balls myself and help her throw the rest. That's right, I'm helping a 4-year-old girl throw a ball up the skeeball. Basically, I'm throwing her arm and relying on her motor skills to release the ball at the right time. We nearly beaned the poor woman next to us at least once. There was no time for me to make skeeball mine now, though, because as soon as we're done, it's "this game next", then "this one!" "what one next?" and I've got the token pocket.
Luckily, she's hungry now, so we go order pizza. This is when I remember that there's a deal on pizza and coins. At first, I thought we got ripped off, but then I figured it doesn't really do much for you. You get a pizza, four drinks, and 100 coins for $40. We got the same thing within a dollar or two buying everything separate. We might've even done better. So, the lesson here is don't get taken on this scam.
While we're waiting for the pizza, she decides she wants to go in the huge tube in the sky thing. Fine. I'll only say this about this contraption: If you're going to let your kid go in this thing, be prepared to climb in there yourself, either by child demand or because your kid got up there and to the farthest corner and then freaked out and won't come down. We rounded her up when the pizza got there. It actually wasn't too terribly bad. It was definitely little kid pizza and it was kind of greasy, but it was edible.
The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful. We played every game at least once. I found myself saying "well that's pretty lame" at most of them. Skeeball is definitely the best place to get your tickets. It seems most of the games are set so that you get 4 tickets pretty much regardless of how you do and if you really beat the crap out of it, maybe you get 5 or 6. For instance, she played the little bonk the gopher game and got 4 tickets for hitting about 3 of them. I absolutely dominated that game next, making a fool out of myself hitting every single one of those little fuckers and I got 7 tickets. I recognized that we needed to pile up some more tickets or this girl isn't going to get jack for toys, so I lead the troup back to skeeball. I dominated that thing for an average of about 14 or 15 tickets per game. Unfortunately, I was only able to play 3 games.
We got our little picture drawn and then went over to the toy counter. Boy was I disappointed. I tried to convince her to get the slinkey or the little airplane, but she would have none of it. We ended up with two little bracelets, a Care Bears paper pad, a little frog jumping plastic thing, and some other crap. No mention of army guys or bouncy balls. They didn't even have any!
In summary:
1) Don't worry too much about the pizza+coins deal. You're not losing anything buying everything separate.
2) When you go, you need a dedicated Skeeballer if you want good prizes. All the other games are a rip-off and are pretty lame.
3) Let your kid in the tube in the sky thing at your own risk.
4) Go on a weekday - I'm glad I did.