Godfather of the munchkin mafia

As a father of two, I have made several trips to that rockin’ rat’s pizza paradise, Charles E. Cheese’s. Today, we went again. As luck would have it, Alex’s school had a fund-raiser there tonight. The wascally wodent dazzled them at an assembly, then they were given stickers and a quick brainwashing and sent off to assault us parents with an endless barrage of “We want to go to Chuck E. Cheese! We want to go to Chuck E. Cheese! We want to go to Chuck E. Cheese! We want to go to Chuck E. Cheese! We want to go to Chuck E. Cheese!” (then repeated several times)

Emily was more than happy to go, as she has been saving her ticket receipts since shortly after conception. Now don’t get me wrong, little plastic lizards or sticker strips can be charming and all, but she realized a while back that the nicer prizes cost more than the number of tickets you can score in a single visit. Every time she goes, shes uses her tokens to score tickets, gets her receipt, and then skips the redemption booth (which sounds like something the Catholics could use to get people back) altogether. 40 tickets here, 50 there, and suddenly she winds up with 629 (oh, and lots of extra tokens).

Now, let me throw in a little aside here. There are times when, as a parent, you feel that certain lessons have to be taught. When your kid shows that they are ready to learn something, you go with it. Cleaning rooms, keeping organized, being punctual … (I’ll get to those eventually). In this case, Emily was on to something with the notion of saving. My dad instinct kicked in, and I decided that I was going to foster and encourage this.

Emily’s been saving, and today she wanted to cash in. She set her sights on a 1000 ticket prize – a spinning lighted disco ball. We ordered our food and some tokens, and then found a table. I got into Don Provolone mode, dishing out tokens and pizza slices and collecting tickets like a godfather collecting tributes and distributing favors, just without the pinky ring. Alex was all about the ticket collecting today as well, and before Emily had rustled up her first 90 tickets he already had a 100. Noting her goal – and his want of having the disco ball around, I mediated a deal that neither could refuse. Alex would sell Emily his tickets; she would agree to lend him the ball on occasion. With that, they were off.

By night’s end, they got their tickets and got the disco ball and were both very happy … until they had to live up to their end of the bargain I struck with them before we left. At least the disco ball provided interesting lighting for hamster-cage cleaning.

So afterwards, I got to thinking about my day. I got the kids to cooperate, have fun, learn a lesson about sharing and saving, and clean up the cages. All that was good. Then I realized that at 4.5 tickets per token and 5.33 tokens per dollar, that stupid disco ball cost me $41.67. Also, we spent two and a half hours at Charles E. Cheese’s. It was a very unrelaxing evening with 50 screaming kids and bad pizza. Earlier in the day I had to go to court and get a root canal (two separate errands – I didn’t get a root canal in the courtroom) (although that creates an interesting visual ... “Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? If so, say, ‘Aaaaah.’”).

I took the day off from work today. Now I’m left feeling like I need a day off.