The Severed Cortex

Robert turned eleven back on the first of the month and even though he doesn't deserve anything based on the absolutely awful way his room looked last time I saw him, we decided he shouldn't have to miss out on his birthday. So we picked him up. In our new car. The plan was to take him to get something to eat, his choice, and then whatever he wanted to do. As usual, he had no opinion for dinner so we steered him towards Red Lobster. He liked the idea immediately. I gave him several options for things to do after dinner such as a movie, or bowling, or shopping for a toy at the toy store. He thought about it for three minutes and said, "Can we go to Fun Spot?" I should have known.

My initial response was, I'm not sure Fun Spot is open that late. I thought maybe we could talk him into going somewhere else while we ate dinner, but he was pretty dead set on Fun Spot. About the only thing we actually could change his mind on was his choice for dinner.

Me: What are you having for dinner?
R: Chicken fingers!!
Me: At Red Lobster?! Are you crazy?! Did you see they have popcorn shrimp?
R: Popcorn shrimp!!

Halfway through dinner he felt the need to count the lobsters in the tank out front. He was happy to report there were 19. All were destined for buttery deliciousness.

So, after dinner we got to test out how cool our new car is. Through the navigation system we could route a trip from Alton to the Fun Spot in Collinsville. It also gives the address and phone number ... and because I also have my phone paired with the car, I could tell the navigation system to call Fun Spot. All without touching a button I made the call and found out the they were open until midnight. Sweet. Well, we did touch some buttons, but we could have done it all by voice if we knew how to do it. So, still sweet. Robert said it must be the smartest car in the world.

We started off by burning through $20 in game tokens, most of which were invested wisely on skee ball, racing games, pop a shot basketball, and other assorted games of skill, all in an earnest quest to amass the most tickets possible. Once the tokens were gone we burned through another $18 in goofy golf. I won, but just barely. Nancy was only a couple strokes behind me. Robert lost interest somewhere around the 14th hole. After goofy golf, we burned through another $10 in tokens and in the end we wound up with 735 tickets. It was enough to buy a bunch of really cool crap which I'm sure will wind up on the floor in his room.