See also: So, Dallas, There's Going to Be an Art Exhibition in a Swimming Pool
In The Parent Crap, Alice Laussade chronicles life as a mom in Dallas. Worried you're screwing up your kid? Tweet questions to @thecheapbastard and she'll confirm that, yes, you're screwing up your kid.
Being a mom is a blessing. A child is a precious, stinking, explosive diarrhea-having gift from your poor, poor vagina. And one day that beautiful, steaming pile of gift will say to you, "I want to go to Chuck E. Cheese, Mom." And you will think, "Fuckball." And you will say aloud, "Who on earth has told you of such horrors, my darling?"
Your Gift will say, "The Dinosaur Train." And you will consider never donating to PBS again. But you will immediately unconsider that because they have you by the balls with their Sid The Science Douche and their shitty newer version of The Electric Company, and that freaky Calliou show, with the kid who talks like the creepy old man from Family Guy, and you remember that one time that they ran a freaking pledge drive in the morning and interrupted The Gift's regularly scheduled pre-pre-school TV (read: your extra 30 minutes of sleep). That day must never happen again. Damn you, PBS, and your glorious educational television without commercial breaks.
You will realize in this moment that you have to go to Chuck E. Cheese because PBS is not going to stop running those ads and The Gift is not going to stop talking about Chuck E. Cheese because marketing to 3-year-olds totally works. The events that follow will be more frightening than your most nightmare-y nightmares.
If you must go -- and I know that some of you must -- I now provide you with a list of things not to do at Chuck E. Cheese:
1. Do not order food here. Eating a meal here has never been a good idea, in the history of Chuck E. Cheese. But, let me assure you, food things here have gone from bad to Dear God, Why?
2. Do not, under any circumstances, make eye contact with the animatronic Chuck E. Cheese. Apparently that motherfucker ate all the other animals who used to be in the band when I was a kid. Dude is crazier than DJ Lance Rock.
3. Don't put your fingers or your hair or your tie in this ticket counting machine. I'm not sure why you wore a tie to Chuck E. Cheese in the first place, since I'm pretty sure it's smart casual here and not business casual, but either way, keep that shit out of the ticket-eating-death thing.
4. Don't play skee-ball. When I was a kid, skee-ball was the ticket gold mine. You played skee-ball and even if you got a shitty score, you got a ton of tickets. Apparently that's not the case anymore. Now playing skee-ball gets you dick. Getting one and a half tickets for skee-ball is more lame than listening to another mom brag about her mommy business cards.
5. Don't punch the soda machine. It's Pepsi products. Tell yourself that right now. Know that Chuck E. Cheese is a special kind of hell that serves Diet Pepsi and also makes you watch this frightening video of pre-Barney. It's on a loop. Continuously. For many minutes. It is not OK.
Your kids might have fun at Chuck E. Cheese. And yeah, you love them and all that shit. But I'm telling my next kid that Chuck E. Cheese is the park at the elementary school across the street from our house. Because this damage cannot be undone. Why doesn't Chucky have a tail?!?! And the lady at the door is so, so sad. She has clearly seen too much.
