Well THAT Was Anticlimatic

True story: I double the recipe whenever I make cookies. I end up with about half as many cookies as a single recipe makes.


When I was a kid I always wanted to go to the arcade at the mall. I didn't know it was an arcade . . . having never heard the word, at least not with its accompanying definition. All I knew was that there was this store at the mall that was really dark inside and really loud and full of these really cool games like Pac-Man and Tetris and racing games and I don't think I even realized what all was there or what was the point. All I knew was it was off limits. And, therefore, I had to get in there.

I honestly can't remember why I wasn't allowed in. It may have been because an arcade is not exactly an appropriate place to turn a seven-year-old (give or take) loose - not, of course, something that would have occurred to me at the time, but something I can completely understand now. It may also have been that my mother thought arcades were the spawn of the devil. Or the actual reason could have fallen anywhere in between those extremes. I really don't know. I think my grandma let me waste a few quarters on the claw machine right inside once or twice. I might have even gotten something out once . . . but again - don't remember.

Luke never got to go to the arcade either. So Tuesday, to celebrate the fact that we don't have to hoard quarters Scrooge McDuck style anymore, we made our way to the mall and wasted the six dollars of quarters we had left after moving.

It was not the glorious dream fulfilling hours of sheer abandoned pleasure my younger self was envisioning.

For starters, it was way to bright in there - just as bright as out in the rest of the mall. Not cool. And too quite - no blaring music, although there were a couple of pretty loud games.

And then there were the games themselves. Either we both suck at video games a lot more than we though - and we both admit that we are not exactly proficient gamers - or about half the games we tried are not functioning properly. That was a little obnoxious.

On the other hand - the plus side - the pinball machine works quite awesomely. I was supposed to get five balls for a quarters, and although I used to be pretty good at this game (on the computer anyway) I'm rather out of practice. Even so, that game went on for a good half hour at least. We didn't keep track because we weren't expecting it to go on so long, but every time that little silver ball sank into the evil abyss it almost immediately reappeared on top of the plunger - woot! That may have kind of made my day. :-) And the awesome Star Wars game was working, which rocked . . . except for the fact that it has been proven once and for all that the Battle of Hoth would not have gone so well had they been expecting me to help out. *sigh*

I feel like I should be disappointed. It was certainly not the stuff my childhood dreams were made of . . . but it was still kind of fun. Even if we did both use copious amounts of hand sanitizer when we were done - something that never would have occurred to me in a million years back in the day. I guess that means I'm all grown up . . . right?

Random side note: Tomorrow is my birthday. I want this. I would be eternally delighted. And I would base all my Halloween costumes around it for the rest of forever. Because with a hat like that, what else would you do with it? And my listening to NPR has totally been justified because if I didn't listen to it for the news on my way to work in the morning I would never have known this was happening. :-)


P. ost S. cript
Missing me some Star Wars Weekends silliness right now . . . I was there for this year, folks. In fact, I may have been at this particular Hyperspace Hoopla (HOOPLA!) even . . .