Chucky Cheese Hell

                                                                    Part I

I apologize to the owners of Chucky Cheese, but your restaurant drives me a little insane.  It’s not your fault.  It’s a great place to take kids.  Fun atmosphere, the pizza is even decent, friendly staff but still, I find myself developing a nervous twitch simply pulling into the parking lot. 

My aversion to this particular establishment started about 6 years ago.  I was in the midst of a painful separation from my husband who had left me for someone he met via the internet.  I was left high and dry with two kids and I was feeling abandoned, alone and sinking deeper into a very dark depression by the hour. 

I thought I was coping.  My family thought I was on the verge of hospitalization.  So, they did what any family would do, standing helplessly by and watching as another member lost their mind.  They took me to Chucky Cheese. 

Under any other circumstance I think I would feel differently about this place but put me in a small car convoy that consisted of my Mom, Dad, two brothers, two sister-in-laws, one niece, one nephew and my two sons and haul me an hour away to a military based town nonetheless, to Chucky Cheese where a hundred kids are running around, screaming and add in a six foot tall singing rat and well, I can’t help but have flashbacks every now and again.  

I look back at that night with humor born of depression styled craziness.  Sitting at a table with my sister-in-law that night and trying to stay between bouts of hyperventilation and crying jags, my sister-in-law grabbed my arm and said “Come on!” and me sputtering “What about the kids?”.  She just said the others would watch them and kept on walking with me behind her.   She drug me out the door, across the parking lot and into the adjoining lot and into another building.  Only when we sat down at the bar did I realize I was sitting in an Outback Steakhouse.  I wiped away the tears and snot and the bartender brought us a drink.  It was a “Wallaby Darned”.   I downed that drink in record time, sighed and we walked back to Chucky Cheese.  I felt better equipped to deal with the next hour and half.  I got a stern look from my father but no lecture.  I guess even he knew that sometimes you do what you have to do to deal. 

Now I’m not one to believe in self-medicating with drugs and alcohol but I do believe there is a reason there is a restaurant beside Chucky Cheese with a liquor license.

(Yes, I know Chucky Cheese is misspelled)