Chuck E. Cheese is Not Hell After All

We attended a Chuck E. Cheese birthday party today. I steeled myself for the occasion. I brought Advil. I had a pre-set time whereupon we were going to leave-for-sure-and-don’t-ask me-to-stay-longer-I-mean-it! I even flirted with the idea of ordering wine to take the edge off the dinge, grime, bell-ringing and children-shrieking. (Meredith Viera would NOT approve). I contemplated ear plugs. And Valium.
I was looking forward to Skee Ball. And maybe some of that wine, if I got the guts to order it. But I was mostly dreading the 1.5 hour-long torture to come.

I arrived, under-napped 2-year-old and jacked-up 6-year-old in tow. First, we scored a parking spot right by the door. I got the kids out of the van, through the rain and into the door in less than 15 seconds. This was starting out well! We walked through a long, half-walled corridor where security guy (Chuck E. Cheese bouncer?) stamped us with a super-secret-only-visible-under-ultra-violet-light code. Kids can only leave with the adult who has the same code. Ok, so I was impressed so far.
I looked around. The last time I went to a Chuck E. Cheese, the walls were permanently yellowed from the wafts of nicotine-laden puffs drifting out of the smoking section, combined with millions of pizza-laded fingerprints. The place was full of nooks and crannies where I ran into blobs of gum, puddles of spilled pop, or French-kissing teenagers. All were equally gross and unnerving.
But what I saw today was a bright, freshly-painted, and totally open place. Everything was visible. There was no place to hide (and therefore, no place to lose a 2-year-old).
I’m sure you gathered by now that I actually had a GREAT time. The kids and I played Skee Ball until our arms fell off. I even let my guard down a little bit, allowing my little guy to wander between the party guests because I could actually SEE him whenever I stopped to look around (and I got to play more Skee Ball this way). We rode rides, we ate pizza, we cheered for Chuck as he danced and rooted for Harry as he blew out his candles. We practically closed the place down.
They also have an AIR HOCKEY table (a long-standing love of mine and Dave’s)! I am totally under Chuck’s spell now. I see many family date nights here in our future. It will probably turn in to Mommy begging the kids to “go to Chuck E. Cheese’s again please-pretty-please!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 7th, 2007 at 5:40 PM and is filed under Motherhood and Apple Pie. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.