tokens and tickets

I have to admit, when jane and I go to chuck e. cheese or the jungle and we play the games, something comes over me when I see those tickets piling out of the machine. it feels like I hit the jackpot- like I’m the world’s best skee-ball player.

one day we scored a mountain of tickets. we went over to the counter to see what we could redeem them for, but we were about 100 short of the really cool chuck e. cheese ball.
the worker said- “oh no problem- you just pay a penny for every ticket that you’re short- it will only cost you a dollar.” I gave her a puzzled look.
she said “yeah- if you see a prize for 500 tickets, you can just buy it for five dollars.”
I said “so each ticket is really only worth a PENNY?!” she just smiled and gave us our ball.
I was mad- because that ball wasn’t worth $5, but I spent a lot more than $5 getting the tickets to pay for it! I got ripped off!

this has really made me think each time I go to one of these arcades. I spend 25 cents on a game, but I’m really only winning if I get 25 tickets or more per token. but that’s crazy- most games you only get about five, maybe 10 tickets per token. if you’re really lucky you can score twenty; but any way you do it, the arcade always makes more than they lose.

I’ve seen middle school boys get bags and bags of tokens as if it were an investment or something. they’ll say, “but think of all the things I can buy with all of the tickets I’ll earn!” I don’t have the heart to tell them that they could get so much more from the counter if they skip the entire token and ticket process.

life is like that too.
we get ripped off.
we spend a lot, and get little in return sometimes.
its sad when we get ripped off financially,
but its even worse when we get ripped off in other ways:

like the middle school girl who trades her faith, her friends, and her relationship with her parents, only to discover that they boy didn’t live up to the hype.

like the boy who trades his innocence just to fit in, only to discover that those friends that he worked so hard to impress were as worth about as much as chuck e. cheese tokens at the supermarket.

like the man who gave up so much to impress his boss or to get that raise or promotion, only to discover that more money just means bigger bills and more stress.

like the preacher who just wanted to be rich, or bad, just like everyone else; and wakes up each morning wondering “what if I stayed in the ministry?”

one time when I was a kid, I went to the movies with my friends. my mom wanted to give me money for video games, but all she had was a twenty dollar bill. she gave it to me and she asked me to make sure that I didn’t use all of it- she needed to use the change to buy things for our house. I thought I would play a joke on my mom and put the 20 in the change machine and give her the change in quarters. only it wasn’t a change machine, it was a token machine- and it spit out $20 in tokens. I freaked out. I asked the manager to refund me, but she wouldn’t. I called my mom and she knew that there was nothing I could do. I was stuck with a pocket full of tokens and a heart full of regret.

is that thing that you are pursuing worth what you’re spending to get it? U2 has this song with a line in it, “you wanted to get somewhere so badly, but did you lose yourself on the way?”
are you falling for the myth that the tickets are really worth something special, when in reality they are not? do you have this sense that one day you might regret the decisions that you’re making now? like you’re spending money, but you’re only getting tickets worth a penny? are you spending money,, time, affection on stuff that just isn’t worth it? are you getting ripped off?

p.s.
now that I know about the whole ticket scam, I’ve learned not to be seduced by the tickets or the prizes. we’re getting a safe, clean, indoor place to play, loads of fun, and all for only 25 cents a token- maybe we’re the ones ripping off chuck e. cheese! now we just go and play and understand that we’re not getting anything for the tokens we spend- other than a fun time together;
and you can’t put a price on that.