Walk the walk.

So we have to endure every parent's worst nightmare this weekend and take the child to Chuckie Cheese. (spooky background music here) I hate Chuckie Cheese, which is in direct correlation to how much my daughter loves it. But we told her she could pick the restaurant where we celebrate her good grades. If you've never been to Chuckie Cheese, it's basically a real-life manifestation of Lord of the Flies. It's just kids, loads of crazy kids running around like lunatics. Add to that the fact they're all suped-up on sugar, caffeine and grease from the soda and pizza. The flashing lights, I'm sure, increase their agitation by inducing some sort of hyper-stimulated brain wave activity. It's nuts, man. I'm telling you, it's nuts. I usually just sit and wait it out while my husband and daughter play the video games, but I've been told I WILL be playing games on this visit so that my daughter can get as many tickets as humanly possible. The reason for earning tickets, of course, is to trade them in for useless little toys that only cost a fraction of what you paid for the tokens to win the tickets in the first place. It's genius when you think of it. I'm sure Chuckie Cheese, Inc. is rolling in the dough. Did you know, by the way, that the guy who started Atari is the person responsible for Chuckie Cheese? It's true. He wanted to have a place to put his video games, so he came up with the idea of Chuckie Cheese, not knowing the restaurant would prove a stronger animal than Atari.