Procrastinet

Sure Shot

filed under: Idle Chatter

I am a sucker for carnival games.

Particularly, I am a sucker for Whack-a-Mole, and the machine gun game where you get 100 lead pellets and shoot out the red star on the little piece of paper.

Every time we go to Coney Island, I have to drop at least $2 for one play on the machine guns. In the heady days of my youth, I would play over and over. But as everyone knows, it's almost friggin' impossible to win the thing - because (a) the guns are woefully inaccurate and (b) you have to get rid of ALL of the red star. A couple times in the past I've gotten the center of the card well blown out, only to find one little hanging chad with the tip of a star point on it.

Yesterday, as our trip to Coney was wrapping up, I stopped for my usual, futile try at the machine guns. The guy poured my tube of shot into the gun and slid a fresh target out on the string. I lined up and started firing.

Now, the key here is short, controlled bursts. It's still a mug's game, since usually where you point the gun has only a tangential relationship to where the pellets go. But in theory you go around the star in a circle with short, controlled bursts.

As I fired away, I noticed a very, very strange thing. Something I had never experienced before, in eight years' worth of attempts at the machine guns.

The pellets were going where I aimed them.

I don't know if it was just early enough in the season that the guns haven't been fully crapified yet, or if I got the only accurate carny-booth M-16 in God's creation, or if it was an Easter Miracle, or what, but the confounded gun was totally accurate.

So I marched my bursts around in a circle. The spacing was good, the circle was clean, but I was about 1/2way through my pellets (we experienced machine gunners have a feel for such things) and the bursts weren't connecting. "Ah well," I thought, "it's been fun anyway."

And then, with the circle mostly complete, I went back to the spots that were obviously still intact. And promptly blew the whole center of the target clean out.

My heart jumped, but I could see there was still a chad with the lower right point of the star hanging on. And I knew I had used most of my pellets.

One burst at the remaining tag. Missed. Another burst. Missed. Another. Missed. With each squeeze of the trigger I was hurrying towards that crushing moment when the gun wheezes empty.

I took a deep breath and blew it out, steeling myself for both a steady shot and the near-inevitable disappointment of getting SO CLOSE.

And shot the hanging chad clean off. And promptly ran out of pellets.

The young guy watching the booth while his boss had gone for change pulled up the target. And looked at it. And looked at it. And finally, whistled a bit.

"Looks good, right?" I said. These guys are masters of finding one last teeny little bit of red to disqualify you with.

"Phew," he said. "Looks real good. I gotta wait for my boss."

The boss came back, a big greasy fella sporting a woman's tank top. He checked the card.

He checked the card again. And again.

And finally, even he had to admit that I'd won.

I had to sign and date my card (because a booth that gives away big cheap stuffed animals is such a high security zone) and it went up on the hook.

The kid got down my chosen Big Bootleg Safari Pooh Bear.

And I got to live the lifelong dream of being the guy walking around with the biggest stuffed animal they have.

And I discovered something gratifying but also a little sad: when you're the guy walking around with the biggest stuffed animal they have, people look at you different. Girls look at you with admiration. Guys look at you with envy. Everybody looks at you like you're big.

And speaking of big, now Max is the proud owner of a Pooh Bear way bigger than he is.

Which is, of course, just perfect for apartment life. Even victory comes with a downside.

Posted by rjt at April 17, 2006 12:18 PM