Chuck E. Cheese is the Root of Terrorism

The other night, my mom received a text message from a family member talking about being at Chuck E. Cheese, then going home for dinner, and commented to me about the unfortunate situation of being at Chuck E. Cheese.  Hours later, after we had conversed about literally many other things, the following conversation took place:

Mom: “I wonder whose birthday party they were at?”

Me: “Um – the hell are you talking about?”

Mom: “She said they were at Chuck E. Cheese, and then going home for dinner.  Nobody just goes to Chuck E. Cheese, so I assume they’re at a party.”

Me: “Untrue.  Used to go to visit the rat with Heather and the boys alllll the time without eating there or attending parties.  Good way to get out of the house in bad weather or just to do something different.  In fact, that’s how I got stopped by airport security that time.”

Mom: “Um – the hell are you talking about?”

Me: “Oh.  Did I never mention that?  Yeah.  That is a thing that happened.”

So, rewind several years.  I lived in Cincinnati with my cousin Heather, her husband, and 3 kids during the summer between my junior and senior years of undergrad.  Best.  Summer.  Ever. 

Like I said above – every now and then, Heather and I took the boys just to play around at Chuck E. Cheese.  On one occasion, she purchased what she thought was 30 tokens, but what turned out to be $30 worth of tokens.  Whoops.  Neither of us was in the mood to put in a marathon session at House of Chuck, and quite frankly, the giddy gleam of insanity in the eyes of the then-six and three year old boys over the prospect of SO MANY tokens was fairly terrifying.  So I figured, no big deal – I’ve got a small bag inside of my purse, I’ll pocket the extras and we’ll use them next time.   There were more tokens than space in the bag, so they were crammed in pretty tight – no room to even jingle about!

Fast forward.  Like, weeks forward.  We were flying back to San Antonio to visit for a week or so.  And let me just tell you – two adult women, taking a six year old boy, a three year old boy, an infant boy, the double stroller and everybody’s respective carry-ons, was an Event with a capital E.  That’s ten pairs of shoes and two sets of hands with the ability to tie.  We may or may not have also been smuggling a small animal.  Anyway - the point is, we were BUSY.  People and babies and backpacks all over the damn place.  The last thing in the world you want to hear in such a situations is . . . 

“Ma’am?  There is something suspicious in your bag that we can’t scan through and we need you to step over here so we can search more thoroughly.”

Awesome.  Of course.

I immediately thought, “OK, what did these tiny little turdburgers slip in my purse?  A toy gun?  Bullets?  A machete?”  I was a teensy bit nervous.

One by one, they took everything out of my purse.  If anybody knows me, I have a big purse.  This was going to take a while.

Then they took out a small, obviously heavy bag.

Oh, for the love of all that is good and sacred in this world.  I forgot about the sack full of goddamn Chuck E. Cheese tokens.

Very Large Intimidating Security Man Digging In My Purse: “Ma’am, what’s in this bag?”

Embarrassed As All Hell Me: “Ahem.  Erm.  Well.  Chuck E. Cheese tokens.  A lot of them.”

Slightly Confused Still Scary Security Man: “ . . . I’m sorry?”

Only I Could Manage This: “Me too.  I am so sorry.  That is a bag stuffed full of game tokens for Chuck E. Cheese and it is probably the reason you’re having trouble scanning my bag and yes I imagine a giant misshapen chunk of metal would look suspicious on your screen and please let me get on a plane now and pretend I wasn’t this stupid.”

Bemused and Scary Man in Uniform: “Carry on.”

And God love Heather, after that summer she let me come live with her for three years while I went to law school.  And it never seemed to bother her that she was harboring a suspected terrorist.

Sarcasmo