A Father's Quest

We went out for our date night... and got home by 9pm. Yep, that's how we roll. We had decided to go play mini golf in Tukwila. Back where I'm from (Pittsburgh), we really know how to do mini golf and amusement parks. The mini golf courses in Pittsburgh are quite elaborate. Here? Not so much. We've been to all of the local mini golf places, and none can even come close to the Pittsburgh courses. The amusement parks around here are laughable.

The place was nice and fairly quiet for a Friday night. It has games and mini golf. They operate on a token system, so you have to buy a card and then the card acts as a gift card for buying tokens and attractions. When S is operating the mini golf tokens, it spits out 2 balls even though he only ran his card once. If we were completely ethical, we would have told the cashier. But we were slightly confused and thought perhaps we had it wrong. We play. There seemed to only be three types of holes: 1) knock it into a house and have it spit out below where the hole is 2) just straight into a hole (very basic) and 3) knock it off a 90 degree elbow/angle. Can we have some more creativity...please? Despite the non-creative holes, I lose, as I always do at mini golf. We bet who gets to get up with Miss J, so that part kind of sucked since I'll be up tonight at least twice.

After we play, we check the card and see we still have $7 in tokens on it. Then we decide to play skeet ball. For what it's worth, I'm much better at skeet ball on the Wii than in real life. I'm also better at bowling on the Wii; I never get a gutter ball when I play on the Wii. In real life, I never get out of the gutter. So, anyway, we use 10 tokens on skeet ball. We have a bunch of tickets, and then we decide to check out the prizes. S immediately sets his eyes on a rubber ball. I immediately set my eyes on candy. He comments how much Miss J would like that ball. I, per usual, am staring at the Fun Dips and swirl lollipops. The ball was 200 tickets, which I thought was well out of our range. The lollipop was 15. Fun Dips were 25.

We keep playing skeet ball, and at the end of $7 in tokens we have 199 tickets. I'm fine with 199 tickets worth of candy, but S has his eye on that ball. He thinks that if we spend $1 more in tokens, we can earn enough tickets to get Miss J the ball and me a lollipop.

Is the guy sweet or what? He is set on getting his little girl a ball. Yeah, you can buy the ball in a store for $1, but I really think his male ego is wanting to win it for Miss J. Endearing and slightly crazy, but that's him.

We end up with 226 tickets. Miss J gets her ball, and I get 2 lollipops. And S gets nothing because he's not really a candy fan, and he wanted his winnings to go to Miss J.

Behold the ball:



And Daddy sterilized said ball as soon as it entered the house. Is Miss J a Daddy's girl or what?