Chuck E. Cheese's: Not As Disgusting As You Might Expect

Yesterday Alec learned that we'd been keeping something from him. Something big. Something called Chuck E. Cheese's.

Tom and I are not fans of that mouse, due to horrible memories of dirt-crusted singing robotic animals, cardboard pizza and, most of all, screeching children covered in varying degrees of snot.

Because I love Alec so much, I planned a trip to the big cheese. I did not tell Tom. I told Alec we were going to a mystery location, to which he asked, "Can we take the Mystery Machine like Shaggy and Scooby-Doo?" When we pulled up to the evil destination, his eyes got as big as cardboard pizzas. It was as if I had never told him that a herd of dinosaurs secretly lives in that overgrown patch in our back yard, or that he could eat blueberries and cheese doodles all day.

It was surprisingly clean, and empty (because it was about 3 in the afternoon, I guess). Alec was scared of the two Jurassic Park games and a stomp-on-spiders game and wouldn't go on the tunnel climbing thing, but he rode some rides and played some games. Once he figured out the currency of the situation (games=tickets=prizes) he was really into it. He carefully deliberated over the prizes and selected a stretchy dino, nose glasses, a lollipop and tattoos.

He's been talking about it ever since. "What was that place I went to? It's called Chuck E. Cheese. What's the good game? What's the scary game? What did I did? What did I win?"