Today Evan turned 4 and, as requested, we took him to the Chuck E. Cheese (CEC) in Tacoma and he had a great time! We spent about 4 hours there, from the custom pizza party to the $30.00 in game tokens, and he was all lit up like a firework the whole time… it was great!
Spending so long there, however, made me realize that it’s so true that the the more things change, the more they stay the same. Back when I went to CEC it was often with a group of friends. We’d each have about $10.00 in quarters on us and our pockets would sing a jingly tune as we furiously pedaled our way to feast on greasy pizza and play video games like Gauntlet for hours by the Lynnhaven Mall in Virginia Beach. We’d just head out on our own and most of the time our parents didn’t know we were; they probably assumed we were just at a friends house.
The Tacoma CEC had some things that the ones I went to never did when I was growing up, like blacklight-reactive numeric identification (placed on hands, stickers, etc.) for children and their parents, mandatory supervision for teens, and an armed police officer watching the floor from the salad bar. There certainly weren’t any cops watching over the CEC I went to when I was younger.
I guess it’s better to have the added security, but I can’t help but wonder what kind of message an armed guard sends to the kids as they feast on their greasy pizza and play their video games.