Day 6 of Nostalgia: A Coin to Die For
FunWorld WAS a world of fun. I also felt like I was a knight of the round table with all my friends doling out tokens and arcade game justice like it was our jobs, because it was! Many a friends’ birthday or whatever event went down here and it was an amazing magical world. They even had a FLIPPING SLIDE that went through the awkward office building adding to that medieval beauty, also a carousel, a bowling alley AND go-carts.
I may have been a little bias towards them since they were a local business, had community connections and the fact a Chuck E Cheese™ token almost took my life as a child. No, seriously true story, only the quick thinking of my Dad and his understanding of how a helicopter worked saved my life. Nobody really knew or did the Heimlich maneuver at home back in the day. Instead, let me paint you a picture. My father doing some paperwork at his desk he hands me a coin to play with, me being the savant child that I was, attempts to eat the coin. I start to turn blue and my sister points it out to my dad, his solution grab my ankles and swing me around until the coin comes out. That did happen… eventually but I just keep spinning for a while even though my sister let him know the fiendish golden mouse idol had dislodged itself and rang the chime of defeat off the radiator. To this day I am terrified of helicopters.
Here is a picture of the bastard right here:
My Father, God rest his soul, carried around this token for pretty much the rest of my life and now it has come to me… and it has become precious to me…