Last weekend, I had to take the girl child to the mall. We went to the food court, and she said they had opened a new arcade. I glance over, and it's full of redemption machines and whatnot. Looks pretty boring.
She wants to go over, so we stroll in, and I'm just underwhelmed. This isn't an arcade, by God. Foghat isn't playing cranked, there's no sketchy guys off in a corner, and no one has quarters lined up on the marquee of a game. Until I spot in a corner an Asteroids, Dig Dug, Robotron 2084 and some fighting game that I had no interest in.. Oh boy, now I found something.
The games don't take quarters, only a prepaid card you tap. She wants to "win" something so I buy her a $10 card, then buy myself one as well. The games I was interested in only used a dime credit per play. My goodness; 10 plays of Asteroids for a buck? The mind reels.
After what was probably less than 5 minutes, she came back. She had burned through her card trying to win something stupid, no doubt. I'm still on my first game of Asteroids. She says something like "you are pretty good at this". Well, I once was, but no one else is playing this fossil, so I'm going to quit with the high score. I play some Dig Dug and Robotron, and she was mesmerized with how many moving characters were on the screen at one time. I scored something like 78,000, but man, my 57 year old reflexes aren't what they once were.
After the game was over, I spent the rest of my credits on air hockey with her. To be honest, that was more fun.