Sweet Memories

 My husband and I were binging on Netflix when my son came in and recounted his date with his girlfriend.  He concluded, grinning ear-to-ear as he expounded, "And Mom the best part was I got revenge on the claw!"

     It took me a while to process (of course that's another ailment for another story) but then it came to me. The claw! Ah, yes the claw. I had blocked it completely out of my mind. I had buried it so deep in the recesses of my mind never to be seen, experienced, or even thought of again.

    Or so I hoped.

    It was during one of our trips to Chuck E Cheese. Not my proudest moment. It was also during what I affectionately refer to as my "dark days." (There wasn't a whole lot of sleep going on). So I would say after maybe an hour at the arcade, a few near miss melt downs, we ended up in front of the claw with our last two tickets.

    The claw was a white (could be any color really) metal rectangular standing box in the arcade full of assorted junk, and huge unobtainable cheap stuffed animals. Hovering over the pile of "treasures," was a huge silver claw.  There was a joy stick that the poor unfortunate individual must operate to lift, turn, close and open the blades to TRY (I say that word lightly) and obtain said toys.

   If we seem like veterans; we are. 

    We had already shed many tears at the claw over elusive electronics, stuffed animals, and the like.

   "Don't even bother with that rip-off machine!" I scoffed.

   "But I want to try at the rip off machine!" She pleaded. Her brother stood beside her wide eyed.

     I gave her her last ticket.

     Of course, she hovered the shiny metal pinschers over a huge black and white striped stuffed tiger and to everyone's shock picked it up on first try. She carried it to the chute, and opened the pinschers, and out it came.

   Now it was her younger brother's turn.

    I mean, Emma had already modeled how simple, and easy it was.

    I think you know how this ends, right?

    I barely looked at the sea of sympathetic, knowing faces turned towards me amidst the wracking sobs from Max as we rushed out of Chuck E Cheese bound for Toys R Us.