Keep The Tickets, Just Give Me My Kangaroo Back

What is it that makes a man? How do the individual grains of childhood memories and traumas falling through the hourglass of our lives merge into a single being? A being capable of the courage to sacrifice their life for another, or the disregard to enter a restaurant and ask for a burrito as big as their head. When do individual experiences assimilate into the collective life of yet another drunken asshole who passed out in my front yard last night? Our humanity is defined not by the answers to these questions, but by the pursuit of those answers.

As I look back on the grains of my own childhood, I am left with a longing for a particular time, a time that lingers just barely out of reach, like a star so bright you almost feel it on the edge of your fingertips. It leaves me aching with passion for just one more moment on that far too distant shore: I want my kangaroo back.

The arcade has become all but another casualty to the advancing technology of today’s games. But while I’ve lost more than a few jobs in the defense of Hyrule and other ancient lands, I can’t help but mourn the loss of that glimmering oasis in the middle of the mall. That mystical place where otherwise responsible parents could shed the harness of their backseat mistakes and sit on a bench while we, their children, could join the Double Dragon gang, man the AfterBurner flight simulator, or race in the Grand Prix. Five dollars got you twenty tokens and half an hour to follow your dreams.

I followed my dream at the bowling alley every week with my dad. We would get up early on Saturday morning and try to leave quietly so we didn’t disturb my mom, who was still sleeping off that fourth Nyquil-tini from last night. He would jump in the Chevette and I would grab the bumper with both hands, beads of anticipation glistening on my brow, and push until the engine turned over. Then I jumped in and we drove the last half of the way to Coopers Lanes.

I walked in, pocket full of quarters, and surrendered myself to the tractor beam pull of Kangaroo. Jumping from tree to tree and sending bad guys into the void with my oversized boxing glove, I felt alive! Then, every week, in a ritual of paternal care, I would hear the voice of my father behind me. As I turned to show him my high score, I could see in his eyes that words weren’t necessary. He looked all around the arcade and then lowered his gaze to me and said, “There you are! Stop playing that god-damned game and get over here! I payed $100 for these bowling lessons so get the hell out there!!!”

It’s been more than thirty years since I’ve heard those beer-infused lines of love… I want my kangaroo back!

Today’s arcades have a slightly different effect on us. What used to be a place of joy where games cost a quarter is now a douchebag-infested restaurant called Dave & Buster’s where a game costs ten quarters. We used to go to the arcade and fly spaceships, explore the jungle, and shoot guerrillas. Now we go to Dave & Busters to drive cars and… well that’s pretty much it. For the price of a gallon of gas, you can pretend to drive a car. Now here are a couple of thoroughly-researched and poetically-versed personal opinions:

- Arcade debit cards suck! There was a childlike romance to a pocket full of gold tokens, each one worth three lives of adventure in a distant land. Now I’m spending forty dollars for ten thousand points? Fuck you, Dave.

- The points system is a scam! You have to buy them in packages which always leave you with, like, half a game’s worth of points so you have to buy ANOTHER package to use them. Fuck you, Dave.

- I’m tired of ticket games. I have more than enough plastic frog pencil toppers and Rainbow Brite temporary tattoos. Fuck you, Dave.

It’s time for us to stand up to this nonsense and reclaim the beauty of what going to the arcade once was.

This weekend, I want everyone to take half the money they would have spent at Dave & Buster’s and go buy a new car, a case of beer, and a box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Then I want you to take the other half and buy every joystick game you can find: Galaga, Ms. Pac-Man, Mappy, Star Wars… and I want you to get separate monitors for each one. Set them all up in your living room and call every friend you have, all three of them. Order pizza, put a red party bulb in your lamp, and tune in the classic rock station!

We’re gonna boycott the greedy bastards who took our kangaroos! Then, when you wake up on the floor tomorrow surrounded by empty beer cans and unconscious friends covered in pizza toppings and shame, you’ll thank me for leading you back to that place where gaming was fun – a place where Olympic gold was won with the rapid-fire push of a button, and a place where the entire world could see who held the high score from the three letter initials of Frederick Ullman Krietchek.

Until next time…