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March 31, 2005
50-70 Dollars a Day Too Few
"Hey. Look. They've got one of those things." Recently I've developed a bit of an unhealthy obsession with claw games - you know the type of game filled with stuffed animals and a claw that drops down from the top and never picks up a single stuffed animal. There was one in the corner of the Denny's in Macedonia, Ohio and I was itching to try it out.
It's not exactly that I want to win anything. I just want to not lose every time I play the game. I mean ever. I've never won a single thing out of them. It's not like I've spent a lot of time and money on the machines even in this, my time of obsession; I think I've stuck, maybe, 10 dollars in those machines in my life. It's just that I think I should have gotten something. I see exactly where the claw should go to grab the crappy plush toy I don't want and still I end up empty handed.
Meanwhile the used car salesman I used to hang out with brought one home from the grocery store every time he went. I never asked him how much he had to spend to get the stuff, I just figured that he got the stuff on the first try. He made his money selling gum and t-shirts, so he couldn't have made that much. That's what I figured, anyway. And if he wasn't making that much money he couldn't have spent a whole lot either.
But then I noticed him sleeeping on the floor. What the hell is he doing sleeping on the floor? He lived with some other friends and I walked into their living room and saw him sleeping there on the tile floor. That can't be comfortable. Those tiles are hard. And his dog always pisses on them. (He had an excitable dog that peed every time it got excited.) This happened pretty often - the sleeping on the floor. The floor in front of the couch, even though he had his own bed, albeit one that had never seen a single sheet and had long turned the color of charcoal ashes.
He slept on the floor when his friend from Kentucky would come over. I thought it was his friend at least. I should have known better, but, really, who describes the object of their affection as looking just like Drew Berrymore?
She would come up for the weekend and he would sleep on the floor next to the couch where she slept. She would come up for the weekend and he would let us spray paint the Old Style logo across the hood of his car. She would come and he would come home with an armload of stuffed animals followed by a bag of groceries.
My guess now is his grocery money went into the claw machine to get her something nice. Something like the Power Puff girls doll Emma got from the claw machine on the way back through Ohio instead of something like lettuce. After all she was a militant vegetarian. She even had a vegetarian dog. That's what she claimed. Even though it ate dog food.
Maybe she only read the first dozen ingredients.
All I can be sure of is that he went to the store and came back with the plush toys and gave them to her. Then doted on her for the rest of the day.
I thought at the time that he was just lucky or maybe skillfull, but I'm starting to think I might be wrong.
At the Denny's in Macedonia I pointed the machine out to Emma, "Hey. Look. They've got one of those things." And she turned around.
"Do you have any quarters?"
"Yeah. I've got a few, but it looks like that old guy is taking all the good stuff." There was a retired guy paying the game non-stop. Non-stop except to give the winnings to some of the young kids in the restaurant.
"I think he's done. Let's get over there." We ran over to the machine. But the old man got there ahead of us. He's old. He'll just put a couple bucks in. I thought.
How wrong I was. We waited behind the guy for over 15 minutes while he tried over and over again to get an Alf doll buried in the pile. When he finally ran out of cash we stepped up.
"You're never gonna get it."
Shut up asshole. "What?"
"He's buried under there. Don't waste your money."
I turned to Emma. "You've got to get it though. For Spencer. It's his birthday."
It was her brother Spencer's birthday. He was turning 28. It may not have sounded that way to the guy now sipping the horrible (but not too bad for horrible restaurant coffee) coffee at the Denny's bar.
"I just cleaned the machine out this morning."
It's only 11.
"If you want to get him something just pay your server a dollar and take this." He reached into a garbage bag full of plush toys and held out a sparkly neon green duck. It was hideous. "I put 50 to 70 dollars a day in that thing. I've got it pretty well down. You're not getting anything. His leg is stuck. If you want something just pay yor server and I'll give you this."
Spencer. I hope you like your sparkly neon green duck.
Posted by calculatoronfire at March 31, 2005 11:19 PM
Comments
the claw is our master.
Posted by: sweetney at April 1, 2005 03:21 PM