May the Cheese Be With You

In the search for a freighter pilot to smuggle them to Alderaan, Obi-Wan Kenobi takes Luke Skywalker to the Cantina at Mos Eisley. It’s not for the faint of heart: “You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy,” Obi-Wan warns Luke.

Well, Obi-Wan, you are wise in the ways of The Force, but I have indeed found such a wretched hive. It’s called Chuck-E-Cheese, and it’s where I spent time on my Labor Day weekend.

Sure, Mos Eisley has vile bandits, privateers, bounty hunters and mercenaries. But Chuck-E-Cheese has vile video games, animatronics and The Cupid Shuffle*. Han Solo had to shoot the bounty hunter Greedo to escape the wrath of Jabba the Hut; we had to shoot skee-ball to avoid the wrath of our children. Han charges 17,000 imperial credits for the trip to Alderaan, almost enough to buy a whole starship. Look at the ticket requirements for the good toys at the prize counter and that starship starts to look like a real bargain.

I have to give Chuck-E-Cheese credit, though - a while back I posted my admiration for our dance troupe and our gymnastics studio for the efficiency with which they parted us from our money. But Chuck-E-Cheese is a force never reckoned with in the realm of parental funds. It is an unbelievably efficient money-destroying machine, turning dollars into tokens, which turn into a small chance at winning tickets worth a tiny fraction of your original dollars. It goes through this money-token-ticket-junk cycle with unparalleled efficiency. The Death Star can destroy whole planets - Chuck-E-Cheese can destroy whole paychecks.**

These tickets and their token precursors are like Wookie Nip to my kids. They run from machine to machine, slugging tokens faster than the Millennium Falcon on hyperdrive.  They can run through 100 tokens in under 12 parsecs.

The Death Star has the tractor beam, but Chuck-E has mass media. They sponsor Curious George, which tells you right away that PBS has gone to the Dark Side. Inundated with commercials, our kids beg to Chuck-E-Cheese weekly. No Jedi mind tricks will work: This isn’t the pizza you’re looking for, go about your business might be effective with weak-minded Stormtroopers, but not with kids who have a steel-trap focus on tokens and tickets.

In order to escape the Death Star, Obi-Wan had to sacrifice his life to allow Han, Luke and Leia time to get away. His light saber duel with Darth Vader ended in tragedy. To escape Chuck-E-Cheese, we had to go to the prize counter with our hard-won tickets. As I watched my $20 turn into a crummy plastic slinky with the life expectancy of a fruit fly, I felt Luke’s pain as he watched Obi-Wan’s robes crumple to the ground.

Star Wars, of course, ends on a high note. The rebel alliance eventually defeated the Death Star. Its defenses were designed for bigger ships; the small X-Wing Fighters were able to fire missiles into an exhaust port that led to the main reactor. Luke Skywalker used The Force to guide his one-shot chance at destroying the evil space station.

Well, Luke has The Force, but I’ve got nothing. I wasn’t able to find any vulnerabilities in Chuck-E’s mighty defenses. But Chuck-E was able to shoot down my X-Wing – I couldn’t destroy the Death Star, but my kids used the Fun Dips they won with their tickets to destroy the back seat of my car. Please, kids, I’m begging you: The Saab 9.3 is a peaceful car. It has no weapons. Show mercy!

So, the next time you feel a great disturbance in The Force, beware. It could be a million voices suddenly crying out in terror and suddenly silenced. It could be that the Death Star has blown up another planet. Or, it could be worse. It could be a day you have to go to Chuck-E-Cheese!

* Cupid Shuffle is apparently the required theme song for dancing mascots at kids’ places, which anyone who has been to The Jump Yard knows. My god, the poor souls who work at these places must, having heard this song 10,000 times, lay awake at night with to the left, to the left, to the right, to the right ringing in their ears.

** It was very tempting to compare Chuck-E-Cheese to the garbage compactor that the heroes ended up in after rescuing Leia from the Death Star brig: dark, disgusting, dirty, with an animated monster pestering them and the walls closing in. But, I have to be fair to Chuck-E. The restaurant is actually quite open, airy and clean with abundant natural lighting. The animatronics, games and all of the furnishings were in good shape. That said, I’m sure Imperial Star Destroyers are quite comfy-umfy for the laser gun operators who live in them -- that doesn’t stop them from being part of The Evil Empire!