Chuck E. Cheese

Tonight we celebrated Anna Beth's 5 year old birthday with the family at Chuck E. Cheese. I've never been to this establishment as a parent. In fact, my only remembrance of this place is when I went as a child. Back in the day it was known as Showbiz Pizza. Not much has changed. There is still the cheesy knock-off "Country Bear" animitronic character show. The pizza was okay. And there was still a Pac Man game. The place is just a whole lot smaller...and lamer...than I remember.

It was cool to see Anna Beth discover skee-ball for the first time...and the thrill of amassing gobs of tickets. She had a blast. It was interesting to watch her wonderlust for tickets increase as the night progressed. I took the gob of tickets to the Ticket Muncher, which made a gravely chewing sound as you pushed in the tickets. This contraption was a lifesaver, in that it counted the tickets for you and printed out a receipt.

My only consternation was in that fact that we won all 208 of our tickets in groups of 2 and 3. So here I am feeding this ticket muncher these tickets 2 or 3 at a time. As I was feeding this machine I was thinking to myself, "All of this buzz and excitement and play and all we'll get to show for this time is some cheap-o spider ring." I was also contemplating the Catholic concept of purgatory and how it had to be similar to this experience, especially when 2 impatient teens got behind me in line with their 2,000 tickets which were all connected together from the 3 hours that they sat in front of the Token Tilt Machine.

One of the weirdest moments was watching a grown man....a grown man....fighting with his wife because she didn't want him to waste their tokens on him showing off his basketball prowess in the free throw game. They got downright huffy with each other and were making a scene in front Chuck E. Cheese, God and everybody....all over tokens and tickets! I felt sorry for the kids who have to watch that kind of stuff. This establisment is known as the place "where a kid can be a kid."...and grown-ups can act like kids.

Tokens and tickets and trinkets are part of the fun in parties like this, but they don't amount to much. It's amazing to think that we get so fixated on winning them at places like Chuck E. Cheese. Alot of people spend great quanitities of their life chasing after the tokens, tickets, and trinkets the world has to offer, too. Yes, there is a rush in earning them. There's even some pride in showing off what you've accomplished. But in the end you're like me at the Ticket Muncher questioning the real worth of what you've just spent your life doing. This Thanksgiving, ponder the value of the things you live for. Don't just thank God for material blessings...the tokens, tickets, and trinkets. Thank Him for the spiritual blessings, the intangibles, the invaluables around you. Your spouse. Your kids. Your salvation. And, for the little cheapy spider rings He has allowed you to own along the way.