Yesterday was a bittersweet day. The up was that it was Mason’s birthday; the down was that it was also Jeff Martin’s grandfather’s funeral. We have known Papa and Amma Martin for many years; in fact, they moved to Sun Valley (my old neighborhood) a long time ago and we used to stop by and visit them from time to time. Of course as time went by the visits grew further apart. I was glad to attend the service and be there to support the Martins, but in the same respect it was sad to see so many people I knew so sad. I attended the funeral, the graveside service, and the gathering at Amma’s house afterward. I hung out at Amma’s with everyone for a little over an hour before Susan called me, requesting my presence at Chuck E. Cheese. On the drive over I had to mentally change gears, switching from a funeral mindset to a festive birthday mood.

We ended up going to Celebration Station, which is like Chuck E. Cheese but closer. Liz, Becky, and Dylan met us there to play some videogames and eat some overpriced pizza. I’d like to say “eh, it’s only once a year” but when Mason realized we were at Celebration Station and not Chuck E. Cheese he cried until I promised to take him there soon too. Ugh. The kids all had a good time playing games and earning tickets. As I’m sure you know, one of the major changes of the American arcade is that most of them are now filled with redemption games — games that dispense tickets, which can later be traded in in exchange for prizes.

At the end of the night while scanning through the ticket counter, I saw a Pirates of the Carribean action figure for 1,800 tickets. I saw the same figure for sale at Wal-Mart last weekend for $6. Through this, I figured out the going exchange rate — one ticket equals one third of a cent. That means if you put a token in a game and don’t get 75 tickets back, you just got ripped off (most of the games we played gave back around ten tickets; some more, some less). Mason’s cousin Dylan was nice enough to donate his tickets to the cause, and at the end of the night Mason ended up with a little over 1,000 tickets, which he exchanged for a chess/checkerboard. After we got home we spent the rest of the night playing checkers, watching Elf, and just hanging out.