So I saw this story the other day, and if this doesn’t disturb you, nothing will: Apparently Chuck E. Cheese, where a kid can be a kid, is really where a parent is very likely to get arrested. There have been all kinds of fights at these arcade/pizzerias around the country, usually set off over something minor, and fueled by the fact that 70% of these places serve beer and wine to the grown-ups. I think I only went to one or two parties at C.E.C. growing up – they weren’t that big on Long Island, but these stories are just atrocious. This one described in the article was particularly bad:

This most recent assault, described in police reports, occurred after a woman in her 30s approached a 6-year-old boy who was playing a videogame. When the boy went to insert more tokens to continue playing, the woman grabbed the tokens out of his hand and told him to stop hogging the game. The boy went and got his 26-year-old mother, who walked over to the woman. The woman began screaming at the boy’s mother, and another suspect, a man in his 30s, grabbed the mother by the throat and pushed her against the videogame machine. CEC employees had to pull the man off the mother. Both the man and the woman fled the scene.

My guess is it was probably Contra III – that game is impossible!