Chuck E Sleaze

Ugh. If you have ever been to Chuck E Cheese for any reason other than a birthday party, I question your sanity. The sleaze factor among the patrons of our neighborhood Chuck E is so high, I wonder if the sign above the door says "Are you a dad who looks like a molestor? Come on in!" The short backstory is that Dustin was gone from 5:30 am until midnight:30 on Sunday so I figured I would do something "fun" that he always drags his feet about. Honey, you win. You were right, I was wrong. Neener neener boo boo on me. Chuck E Cheese is, quite possibly, hell on Earth. We took Breckin there for a birthday party two years ago and I remember thinking it was a little insane but- it was Saturday and there were two adults to monitor one child. Not too bad.

For some reason, I figured Sunday would be better. And, I changed the odds drastically in the kids' favor- two of them to one of me. Can someone pour me a glass of wine? I can't even recall the day's events without my body screaming for a drink. Here we go. It's pouring down rain outside so as soon as we pull into the parking lot, I remind Breckin not to get out until I already have Ella (in her 100 lb car seat) in tow as to avoid the soggification of my child. We dash into the front door to be greeted by the entire population of Disneyland on the Friday of spring break crammed into a room the size of a McDonalds. I wanna get away. I'm stuck cause the look on Breckin's face is priceless. He is clearly in hog heaven. Come on, mom skills, kick in.

We get safety stamped, get a table, I remove Ella from her cement block of a seat, dump coats, get drinks to "mark our spot", and tokens to play every game he wants. I am hoisting Ella around on my hip while trying to chase the crazed lunatic from hamster maze to Bob the Builder ride-on Scoop to skee ball to whac-a-mole and back to maze. I have to literally elbow my way through the mobs of people- most of whom are radiating unavoidable body odor. Have you seen Home Alone? Remember when Macauley Culkin ran around the house on fast forward with his arms in the air? That was Breckin. He loved it. I wanted to cry. I spent TWO HOURS holding Ella with one hand while carrying a token cup and reams of tickets and throwing the skee ball with the other hand. My back hurt. I was roasting hot. And, if I ever heard one more person yell "(Insert child's name here), you better move your ass over here with me or wearegoinghomerightthisinstant" and then not follow through, I was going to call Dr. Phil on them. Don't get me started on empty threats. That's a whole 'nother post.

We played about 40 tokens, ended up with 56 tickets, and Breckin learned life's hard lesson about the decreasing value of paper tickets. His two hours of hard work resulted in a light-up spinning top instead of the Hot Wheels set with the 8,000 ticket price. He was in tears. He so wanted that Hot Wheels set. His face was red from all the running around, he could not get enough crappy pizza and lemonade to quench his angst, and he could not stop sobbing. It was time to go. We dashed back out the car with promises of returning someday if he left with an ounce of dignity and started the bedtime plan immediately upon arriving at home. Did I lie? Maybe. Probably not cause at some point, in about two years, I'll have forgotten all about how horrible Chuck E Cheese is and take him back there. For now, if anyone else wants to be his hero, I invite you to brave Chuck E Sleaze. Call me.