Where a Kid (At Heart) Can Be a Kid!

Ever wanted to go to Chuck E Cheese and play all the games, but you'd feel weird cuz you're 27 and you have no children??? Or considered asking the boss if you can borrow her children for the day just so you can go there and play skee-ball? Over the weekend, I went to Dave & Buster's, a place with games galore - like Chuck E Cheese, but better food, and booze! Who says that we can't play, too?? We went all the way out to Addison (I didn't even know that's where we were until today when I checked the D&B website. I don't know much about the mysterious and elusive "Western Suburbs.") We had dinner - much much better food than bad cheese pizza and no one in scary mouse costumes - and dessert (warm donut holes with chocolate and raspberry sauces for dipping. Hello? Delicious!). We sang happy birthday to Jane as loudly as we possibly could (birthday embarassment in a public place is ALWAYS good!) and then... to the games!

They had every game a person could think of. The beloved skee-ball, animal cranes, ms. pacman, like every single arcade all rolled into one. Winning a game resulted in tickets issuing forth from the machine. These tickets could be be redeemed for prizes, just like at Chuck E Cheeses. There were 7 of us, which greatly increased our odds of winning team games, and we pooled all of our tickets together. I never got a final count, but we ended up with several little buckets crammed with tickets. I bet we could have gone into the prize shop, pointed vaguely and said "yes." We had that many.

My particular specialty was with the games that required no special skill. I played several where all I did was put tokens into the slot and watch as something happened in the machine, wheels spun, lights flashed, sound effects sounded, etc, and when it was all done doing its thing, tickets started spewing out of the machine. Hello. I found my game!

Anyway, it was fun. Just like the carnival games, except without the sweltering heat and the creepy carnies skanking around leering at you. Only one thing was missing - D&B needs an adult sized ball pit! Then the regression to childhood will be complete. I would definitely go back to Addison (with a map quest!) for that.