Dream Day II

     The first hour flew by quickly and all four of us were ready for more tokens. We knocked on the manager’s door and he actually seemed surprised to see us so quickly. Really? We were eleven and twelve years old - it was our job to play games. We thanked him and headed back into the arcade. Next up, the crane game.

            I had never been very lucky with this game and I attributed that bad luck to my lack of practice. Well, with unlimited tokens, I became a crane wizard by the end of the day. I could pick up a small animal with my eyes closed. I remember winning handfuls of toys, taking them to the chaperones, only to run back to the machine for more.

            Tickets and toys were not the only items of our interest. We took breaks to rest and re-energize. The pizza and soda were just the right amount of grease and sugar to keep us going. Dig and I decided to play mini golf after lunch and my sister Shelly joined us.

            When we completed the round, we casually slipped Shell a few tokens and headed back to the skee ball machines. Our tickets were adding up but the top shelf items were still significantly out of reach.

            And then it happened. Somewhere in the fog of game playing, I finally reached my ticket goal. The excitement made my stomach turn as I ran to the ticket counter.

I handed over my tickets and patiently waited for the girl to count them. When she finally finished, I pointed to the stuffed animal of my choice. My whole face was beaming as she handed me the two foot, yellow, worm-like animal with legs and arms.

I felt so much pride in my prize. The animal was so cute with red shoes, a red nose and a smiling face. In my glory, I decided to take my winnings to the photo booth where I took a round of pictures featuring the two of us. Then I carried the pictures and my prize around with me as I started my new ticket stash.

            I realize that this sounds a little bit crazy, but I believe that my age and the circumstances of the day excuse my wacky behavior. Remember Charlie and the Chocolate factory? What kid wouldn’t go a little bonkers?

            At any rate, I loved that animal, but soon she became too much for me to lug around. I reluctantly forced myself back to the chaperone table and dropped her off. I knew that they would take good care of her, yet I did check on her from time to time. For one, I wanted to make sure she was okay and secondly, I just wanted to get another glimpse of my beautiful prize.

            I soon noticed that I was out of tokens and needed a refill. I hunted down Dig, Ann and Leah to see if they needed to fill their stash—and for reinforcement. The manager was starting to get quite annoyed by us and the amount of tokens four kids could spend.

I believe that the “free day” prize started to backfire on the staff at Circus Circus. They totally underestimated the amount of adrenaline eleven and twelve year olds could possess if given a “free day” at an arcade. We had so much energy that an eight a.m. to midnight stay was not only possible, it was likely.

The manager questioned us about sharing tokens and we smiled and shook our heads no. It’s not like we gave our siblings a million tokens, just a few really. Our parents were not too keen on us breaking the rules, so we had to keep it discrete.

            He grumbled something at us but filled our cups anyway. We probably seemed like greedy little monsters, but this was the prize awarded and we were not going to let it go to waste.

            I’d like to say that because I had the entire day to explore that I tried every game in the place but some of them did not interest me. I stayed away from shooting games, punching games and complicated driving games. I did shoot a few hoops, drive a few cars, ride a few horses and get in a couple round of Ms. Pacman, but I had my favorites. Maybe it was the ticket factor or that I played the game well - What ever it was, skee ball pulled me in. I could not get enough of it. The crane game was a close second.

            I ran into Ann, Leah and Dig throughout the day but we all abided by an unwritten rule. If you wanted to do something, do it. If someone wanted to come with you, great, if not, don’t be offended. This was a once in a lifetime prize and we all decided to make the best of it with no hard feelings. I’m not saying that we didn’t play games together or eat together, we just wanted the day to have no strings attached and be full of happiness. And our plan worked. We had a blast!

            Having said that, the last few hours we spent playing, were a little more stressful than the rest of the day. We were all exhausted and our parents were not too thrilled once the high school crowd flooded into the arcade.

            The day eventually came to an end and we were ready to head home. I am not exaggerating when I say that each of us went home with two garbage bags full of stuffed animals. The animals ranged from large to tiny. We each had one or two large animals, a few medium and countless small animals from the crane game.

            This day was so awesome! We could not have had more fun. And as we left the arcade with tired eyes and exhausted bodies, we radiated happiness. We were lucky and we knew it. We couldn’t ask for anything more.