AN EVENING WITH THE MOUSE

 

    Not the Mickey.  The Chuck.  As in Chuck E. Cheese, the big gray mouse who sports a bright purple tee-shirt and a baseball cap.  Mouse with a game arcade, lots of really bad pizza, and hundreds of running, screaming, tantrum-throwing children – mostly under the age of six.

            The decibel level in here rivals a heavy-metal concert.  And speaking of heavy-metal and industrial drums, I happen to be guarding the winning cups for my granddaughters at a table across the aisle from Guitar Hero, an arcade game which features a large, animated screen where an industrial band is performing for virtual convicts in white- and gray-striped prison pajamas. At the moment, two sweet-faced sisters are manning the two interactive guitars while their younger brother looks on in wonder from the sidelines and their young mother gives them instructions.  The only on-screen instructions to the wanna-be rockers are found in a smallish box near the top of the screen:  Don't fret; strum.  Beginner's mode.  And the song  they are rocking-out to just now?  "Hit Me With Your Best Shot."  Lots of that - hitting - going on in here too.  The little boys only know that they're friends, apparently, if they can slug each other with all their might.

            Next to them, my two-year-old granddaughter, Whitney, is feeding a gold coin to the Big Bass Wheel Pro arcade game which, all evening, has returned – to even the most skilled players – only 2 to 3 tickets.  The good thing about a two-year-old though is how she is equally happy with one ticket as she is with ten or twenty.  That is how young she still is.  How wonder-filled.  Not far away, her big sister, Haley, is torpedoing ships with great gusto from the submarine Sea Wolf.  She brings back to the table an impressive string of tickets for her "winning cup" and then runs right back off to her Papaw to ride the big white horse in the Derby game over in the Toddlers' section.  In front of her: the track and the heads and rumps of other virtual horses against whom her horse competes.

            In the far back of the General Admission tables, where we sit, is the section of specially-reserved tables for the birthday party children.  They have a stage and a larger-than-life stuffed version of The Mouse.  They have a video booth where they can watch themselves dance and make faces at themselves.  They have a big cake and get a visit, every hour, from The Mouse himself: someone dressed in a big gray mouse costume who waves and moves among the birthday party children, giving them high-fives and hugs and posing with the children for their parents' cameras.  Big smiles and excitement all around.

            The children in our section want to hug The Mouse too, but they are not "allowed."  One mop-headed toddler has to be carried away by his mother who seems weary and distracted, uninterested in the moppet's sadness.  She plops the boy on his father's lap and goes for a refill of her diet soda; the boy's father continues texting someone and tells the boy to "shut up."  The boy does, but his eyes are still following the big mouse around the back of the room.  Even in a children's paradise such as this, there is privilege and hierarchy, permission and denial.  Haves and have-nots.  Not that the boy yet understands this.  But he will, in time; he will.

            Outside, the sky has gone stormy and, across the parking lot, both flags atop the Texas Roadhouse are flying perpendicular to their flagpoles.  Hurricane Irene is moving up the coast.  Not that we have much to fear, inland, except maybe the amping-up of the usual high winds, hard rain, and flooding that we are growing accustomed to here in Central Pennsylvania.  But we have become a sort of "tornado alley" in the last two years – 3 of them so far this year – so we are learning to keep a watchful eye on the wind, even as the winning cups fill with tickets, then overrun their plastic rims in that "my-cup-runneth-over" way that they do.

            When all the gold tokens have been spent in the arcade, when all the games have been played and replayed, when the tickets are gathered up and cashed in, there will be prizes to select and carry home.  Small treasures for the children.  Keepsakes.  Departing gifts from The Mouse and all his weary, faithful minions.

 

photo courtesy of photos.com

 

Comments

[Vivian]

Ah, Chuck E. Cheese. That was one of the first places that my son wanted to go when he first visited "South", which is what we Alaskans call the lower-48. I couldn't stand the place but I was happy watching him run through the place. I think he was four years old. And, yes, he did see the Mouse and got a t-shirt and I have photos to prove it. He's now an Engineer and has a new baby boy. I wonder if he'll take my grandson to see the Mouse one day?

Thanks for sharing, Anne. And who is the little darling in the photo?

[Anne Caston]

Hi Vivian! When my children were still small and we lived in Anchorage - way back in the day - there was a Chuck E. Cheese. I took them one time and never again. Why do children love that place so much? I cannot fathom the why and wherefore of it.

I don't know who the little boy is in the photo: I bought the royalty-free rights to use it but they gave me zero info on the photo. Isn't he huggable??

Thanks for reading, Vivian, and for writing back.

Anne

[Grace Cavalieri]

YOUR GRANDDAUGHTER LOOKS EXACTLY LIKE YOU!!. Thank you. We took Joe and Sean, grand boys to CHUCK-E-CHEEZE every week. But did not know then it could be turned into prose poetry. If anyone can turn mouse costumes into gossamer... it is ANNIE

[Anne Caston]

Grace, I think you ought to be given a medal of valor for enduring that place every week! Dear God, do you still have eardrums? My ears are still ringing. . . .

xoxo Annie

[Ken-san]

Going to C-Ch was bad enough but I remember a 2 hour drive each way just to take the twin boys there. I'm old and wiser now -- they can almost drive themselves. Sweet memories.

[Anne Caston]

Ken-san: I know. For all my complaining, it is making memories of those happy - if wild - evenings at C. E. Cheese with the grandchildren. How the time flies away: before we can look up clear, they are growing past The Mouse and into their adolescences. Sigh

xoxo Anne