Dear Chuck E. Cheese's,
Thank you for providing the perfect enviornment for an adult to get lost in. I think you are superb compared to McDonald's Playland for so many reasons including:
The comfortable cushioned booths.
The numbering of children for the sense of security that every mother craves in this era of being afraid to let your child out of your sight which allows us to totally ignore our children AND have peace of mind.
Some damn fine pizza (even in Chicago, a city known for its pizza).
A lesson every MBA Program should include which is finding a way to charge $20 for two miniature tootsie pops, s piece of string that is suppose to be a ring, and a fake worm. Perhaps President Obama should be consulting this smart little mouse on how to stimulate our economy.
I needed you today more than I needed those two Strawberry Margaritas last Saturday night. My visit today came as a complete surprise. I stopped saving Chuck E. Cheese's coupons more than 2 years ago. My son is now 13 and would rather face a firing squad of the biggest bullies at his school than be seen anywhere near a Chuck E Cheese's. How ironic that I spent the sum total of his first year away at College at your fine establishment before he ever reached kindergarten. I guess it was my idea of a Head Start Program. It worked. He was adding and dividing and calculating points for pathetic plastic prizes faster than you can say Massachusettes Institute of Technology. He skipped simple number identification in kindergarten and went straight for the addition problems.
My daughter is almost 11. She was also a dedicated cheese pizza loving fan from an early age. I guess you might say you were her first true love. However, she is already finished with her third summer at sleep away camp and is quite picky about where we are purchasing her clothes these days so I never anticipated she would choose a beautiful summer day to ask me to take her and an old friend she has not seen in a long time to Chuck E. Cheese's. When you are only 10 years old, how old would you have to be when you first met to consider someone an "old friend?" Enquiring minds might want to know. This friend was someone she met when she was just three. It was like they were having a second honeymoon today. I use to take these two lovely ladies to Chuck E. Cheese for a girls night/afternoon out all the time. They were giddy with anticipation as I drove the old familiar route. "I love their pizza!" my daughter said to her
"childhood friend" with more excitement in her voice than she had when we bought her a big girl two wheel bicycle. Oh, Chuck E, you melt her heart.
On a personal note, the reason I was so excited was the timing of the request could not have been better. I spent the morning helping two adult male cousins with special needs and they had worn me out mentally and emotionally. I know I need to do the "right thing" and not abandon them though I really do want to. Luckily the "love of my life," my sister in law (don't tell my husband) has been my constant companion during the long journey of helping these two brothers. They are the sons of my mother's brother. After both their parents died my mother was the one in our family who decided to "adopt" them. Their parents have been dead a long time, and they often slip and call my mother "mommy" Bekcy. You see, no matter how old they become chronologically, they are very much little boys. Our family has and still does refer to them as "the boys." As my mother got older she became less able to guide and supervise them. So, in addition to giving me her huge collection of plastic and real jewelry before she died (thankfully I still have her and she is 90 years young) when I moved her into a retirement community aka "an old people's home" she also bequeathed "the boys" to me. Most people inherit money, I got two special needs adult males.
It has not been an enviable experience dealing with their contant crisis ranging from finding a suitable living arrangment, managing a myriad of medical bills, dealing with unemployment compensation, and keeping exploitive people away from wreaking havoc with them, teaching them how to use a microwave, and a vacuum cleaner and answering the same questions 1,000,000,000 times.
My plate is plenty full already. But the family has dwindled or moved away and they are incredibly needy and once you become involved with them it can literally take the oxygen right out of your blood. So, Chuck E. you showed up today and I was more than relieved to hand over my 30 bucks and let my daughter eat your pizza, play your games and enjoy her friend while I refilled my diet coke cup a hundred times and wrote in my journal until all the frustration evaporated and I was able to smile again. My diet coke cup runneth over in gratitude to my old Grey Friend. Hey, maybe I found the perfect location for my Big 50 party? BYOB everybody.
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