Chuckie Cheese

Have you ever been to Chuckie Cheese?

It is the kind of place I heard about on television commercials as a child. It was in the "city". Like, not Preston, but Salt Lake City.

Once I moved to the suburb of a really big city, my time had arrived. Keep in mind, this was about eight years ago. We went to Chuckie Cheese with some friends. I couldn't figure out (while I was there) who in the world would take their kids to this germ-infested, chaotic place.

Oh, that would be me. Too many times.

We went there for my son's birthday a few years later. And, again as rewards for becoming potty trained. Sheesh, I was a pushover for Chuckie's toothy grin.


Here is where the slightly embarrassing-but-not-enough-to-keep-off-the-blog confession comes:
"We bought too many cups of soda, meaning the actual cups themselves."

So, me being the ever-frugal woman that I am, thought, "Oh, we'll be back, I'll just keep these in the cupboard until next time." Next time came. Again. And probably Again. And, either we'd forget the cups or we bought the package deal that already included drinks. Until this time - heh heh :-)

I'm not kidding. I kept those cups up in the top of my cupboard for years.

When my youngest child finally earned her "night-dry" potty training reward, I happily pulled out my Chuckie Cheese cups. To my suprise, I found about 25 tokens (coins) and a gift card for a bowling alley (??) in addition to the three cups.

I was careful to order non-drink-included pizza meals and I proudly marched my saved cups over to the soda fountain. The kids began their fun and I began the wait, I mean the fun, of watching them. My husband joined us about halfway through the adventure which sure made the whole thing better. Towards the end of the party, I told him about my great "find" in the old Chuckie Cheese cups. He then told me that one of the workers had incredulously asked him, "Where did you get those cups, we haven't sold those in six years?!"

What a great story isn't it? I am going to chuckle about this for a very long time. You can't ever accuse me of not getting my money's worth.