04 February, 2010

ChuckE's

8 March 2009
257

R. Linda:

The little Airport was all excited and dancing up and down with anticipation for an outing to ChuckE Cheese's. I'd never been to Mr. Cheese's place as this is primarily an American institution and not one we have back home. And after such an experience I'd like to move back home far away from Mr. Cheese's establishment.

That aside, we got in our car and took off for Manch Vegas AKA Manchester, for the one ChuckE Cheese's eatery and playery that we knew of. Pre-school whispers of ChuckE's play emporium abound. Some kiddies have been and have come back with wondrous stories of games, the mouse himself, and lots of pizza and soda and if you haven't been to Mr. Cheese's place, then get your parents to take you there posthaste for begorrah's sake.

Well, we've heard the rumblings, Tonya and I, and we told the Airport only upon completion of a very important necessity of life, would we consider Mr. Cheese's establishment as a reward. Yes, we did indeed.

Tonya announced one morning at breakfast when yours truly be not fully conscious, that if Mr. Airport went two weeks without nappies, and slept through the night in HIS own bed (yes, we would awaken to Mr. Airport sleeping between us on occasion), he would be rewarded with a visit to Mr. Cheese's eatery and gamery. Well, as you can imagine this was superiour news to the Airport and right then and there, he was ready to visit the water closet and give it a go. I thought in me blurry state, never happen. But he proved me wrong, he's gone two weeks in his own bed and he's using the toilet like a big boy.

I secretly was hoping we'd have relapses to prolong MY visit to Mr. Cheese's, but no, me son be right on something when he wants it and so, I bit the bullet as they say, and we promised a turn at the mecca for kiddies.

As soon as we pulled into the parking lot there were more children than parents on their way in of which there was a bit of a queue, and not to be outdone, some of these lovely children were pushing ahead of their parents to get in. And the poor girl who stamps parents and kiddies with a number so one can leave with the right set of one or the other was having a devil of a time forcing the children back.

Once inside, Tonya got tokens for games and I was sent to order the pizza and get the drinks. As I waited in line I was pushed, shoved, and stepped on, children got in front of me in line and I gently moved them out only to have me hand forcefully removed as they pushed back in front. I gave up because I did not want to be accused of child abuse.

I ordered the pizza and filled the cups with soda and then I found a dirty table. This was not easy balancing the drinks with running children shoving you and hitting against you as they ran this way and that, and there were hundreds of them, R. Linda, literally hundreds! I found an empty table which I just beat out another couple for. I had set the drinks down and their little darling sat her fat derriere down and there I was sitting across from her, like Who Are You? She got up reluctantly giving me the dirtiest look I've ever been handed by anyone. I sat there waiting for pizza delivery and noticed me son was not about the token machines, he wanted to climb up this tube thing that went practically around the room and then there was a slide out of the thing. Yeah, fun, we could do that at McDonald's I was thinking and have juicy burgers. I was bored out of me skull sitting there, having me feet stepped on when I noticed Mr. Cheese himself about in the middle of the room waving. He'd turn to his left and then to his right and well when he turned to me I'd wave because no one else was, and I felt like if someone would put on that hot rat suit and stand there like a great fool, the least one could do was wave back!

Tonya decided to wait at different slides from the tube thing was a waste of time because the Airport would pop out of the one she wasn't waiting at, so she joined me. She asked me who I was waving at and I told her ChuckE of course. She shook her head and said, ChuckE was an auto-tron, a machine. Did I feel stupid? I felt the right eejit and wanted to crawl under the table, but that action was stopped when a ten-year-old girl put her foot on our table to tie her sneaker. I was gobsmacked for words I was, and she didn't care. Off she went and I looked at an equally dumbfounded Tonya.

There were no words at the rudeness we were subject to the entire stay. The Airport was flushed in the face from all the fun he was having. We sat there munching on cardboard cold pizza making faces of disgust and more faces of disgust as we took a bite of cheese stick. Thank the powers that be they had beer because I quickly left the soda for THAT.

I do wish someone had told me to bring earplugs. Begorrah what a zoo and the food, the pizza tasted like it was recycled from the trash and even worse, we ordered up the cheese sticks that tasted like old tyres dipped in batter and deep fried, nightmarish. They had beer, I had lots of it, I was simply starkers after the first five minutes.

The little kids play or rather urinate in something called the ball pit. The bottom of the thing be a lake! I was wondering how it got so wet in there until another parent warmed me to not let me kid in that because it was used as a bathroom by children having too much fun to take a break. While I stood there in disbelief the children were rude, they knocked into us, stepped on us, shoved us, SIGH.

The Airport came to the table, got a fistful of tokens and then entertained himself by putting them in different slots and walking away. I was like hey buddy, we can play this or you can ride that, but other kids would jump in as he walked away and they got free games and rides. He just liked putting the coins in the slots. Tonya be afraid he has the makings of a slot machine player when he gets older.

We were dazed, confused and pretty deaf by the time we left. We would swear off more children but too late. The Airport unbelievably had had enough and wanted to go home after 2 1/2 hours of ChuckE Cheese's. He fell asleep in the car and we put him in bed fully clothed, we were exhausted. Then we went to the liquor cabinet, I got out the Murphy's Whiskey and she the Captain's Spiced Rum, but oh no, she couldn't imbibe because she's expecting, oh too bad, I handed her a bottled water. We sat there for hours in silence and disbelief sipping our respective choices.

This morning we awoke with hangovers, we were both sporting big dark circles under our eyes and have promised never to mention the words ChuckE Cheese out loud in the presence of the Airport ever. We are hoping he'll forget -- like we'd like to.

Gabe
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