As a parent I have done many things that I have regretted. Like most, I lied about Santa Claus and built on that lie by also saying there was an Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy. Oh, what the heck, why not add to my layer of lies and pretend leprechauns and fairies were real, too.
I have paid for my parental transgressions over the years, of course. On the even-things-up scoreboard, I’ve sat through a two-hour Blue’s Clues show just so my son could enjoy what I can only describe as a Sixties Experience without the drugs. A surreal mishmash of oversized, dancing blue dogs that don’t talk, a twenty-something kid who seems to have no life at all, a talking mailbox… I told you. The Sixties but without any of the bliss or psychedelics.
I have also been to a Wiggles concert. If you are a parent, you know about these four guys from Australia. The Wiggles have been around so long – 21 years – that three of them have retired. Jeff, Murray and Greg have all cashed in their Wiggles chips and have been put out to pasture, leaving Anthony, Captain Feathersword, Henry the Octopus and Wags the Dog (what is it with kiddy entertainers and dogs) to carry on the fine tradition of brainwashing our young ones with sappy songs that make no sense at all, but are so catchy that even to this day they occasionally come to mind.
I guess it’s what parents do. If I had the option, I would simply have dropped the moppets off at the door to the theater, given them some large bills to purchase odd souvenirs before the show, such as a glowing wand with a star on the end (why!?), and pick them up at the bar across the street afterward. I still think there is a market for a Kid’s Show Nanny. Hand the moppets off to her, head over to the bar, and you and your kids can both have your own version of happy hour.
While I would love to continue to pretend to bear the cross of being a self-sacrificing parent, I do have a dark secret.
It all began innocently enough. I had taken my daughter to Pizza & Pipes in Bellevue. If you remember this place, it had a huge Wurlitzer organ and they played old silent movies. It was a fun pizza joint.
As we sat and ate our pizza, my daughter asked if we could go to Chuck E. Cheese sometime. I had been to this place before on a date with a “woman with child” as my mother called her. To say that I didn’t enjoy the experience is an understatement. It was pain to the -enth degree, like the life sucking machine in the Princess Bride. Go in to Chuck E. Cheese 30 years old, come out an hour later 35.
But my darling daughter had asked. What was I to do?
I lied. Yes, I lied to an innocent little girl. I told her that Chuck E. Cheese had gone out of business, that I originally wanted to take her there instead, but they were now closed and Pizza & Pipes was the only option left.
I admit. I liked Pizza & Pipes. They had some video games, a touch of animation but not too much, no scary costumed characters roaming around and beer. Yes, beer. Chuck E. Cheese didn’t have beer, so all a poor parent could do was sit there with their sliced cardboard pizza that cost $20 and watch other parents be bored out of their minds, each hoping their kids would blast through their game tokens as quickly as possible so they could get the hell out of there.
Harsh? I don’t think so. I mean, I’ve sat through a Wiggles concert for god’s sake and managed to seem excited, as if I were watching the Fab Four perform.
Heartless? Have you ever been to Chuck E. Cheese? It makes Disney really seem like the happiest place on earth.
The ruse worked perfectly. As if the heavens were in agreement, the nearest Chuck E. Cheese did go out of business about the same time so I could show that this was indeed true, at least locally.
It wasn’t until my daughter was in her early 20s that the whole ruse fell apart. We were headed south on I-5, going through Tacoma, and there on the right was a Chuck E. Cheese, lit up like the North Star.
My daughter looked over and said, “Wait, they aren’t closed. They never were.”
Damn. Without thinking I cut across two lanes, cutting off four cars and a semi, and sped off the freeway at the next exit.
“Where are we going?” my daughter asked.
“To Chuck E. Cheese, darling daughter. And I don’t want to hear another word about it.”
When we got there I ordered a cardboard pizza and got her a hundred tokens. I handed them to her and said I didn’t want to see her until every last one was spent.
To this day I don’t know if she enjoyed her Chuck E. Cheese experience or not. I’m not really sure anyone can. But I righted a wrong, a serious wrong, at least in part.
Once her tokens were all spent, she joined me for some pizza. I told her how sorry I was about the whole Chuck E. Cheese was out of business thing. I told her I wouldn’t lie to her again.
And so we sat, enjoying that famed lackluster pizza, as I finally told her the unvarnished truth – that there was no such thing as Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, fairies in general or leprechauns. All my fetid untruths were laid out on the table so my daughter could enter therapy knowing the cold, hard truth about her father and all of her misplaced childhood fantasies.
I hope Chuck is happy that he ratted me out that day.
In the Emerald City, wondering if I should tell Parker the truth about Chuck E. Cheese,
– Robb