Jesse Finally Gets Lucky with Ruthie

The one good thing about having an abundance of pretend girlfriends is that you can get out any romantic type desires of dating without any of the pressure. I mean sure, you don't get the extracurricular engagement, but when you've gone as long as I have without, you mostly just give up on that.

With Ana out of the picture and Sarah in school, my pretend girlfriend dates have dropped to an all time low, so I was kind of excited when Ruthie told me that Jacob would be in Tucson for a Friday, and that her and I should go out and do something.

I consulted my big list of dates and after whittling them down I decided on a restaurant near and dear to my heart. I decided on Peter Piper Pizza. Skee Ball and crappy pizza, is there a better way to treat a lady and spend a Friday night? If you answered this question, "Yes", then this right here... you and I... it's probably not going to work out.

Eldad and Rachel decided they'd meet us there, but that gave us time to order pizza, get tokens, and give the games the once over. Now anyone who is a conasuir of token based games of chance and skill will tell you that the "Mine Cart" game is a loser. You play the skee ball for the ladies so you can do the "move", and the tornado game for the payday.

Here's a simple rhyme in case you find yourself easily forgetting which game pays:

Skee Ball for the honies
Tornado for the monies

Shoot hoops for laughs
Wheel of fortune for scratch

Mine cart doesn't fall in to the rhyme, but that's neither here nor there. The point is that it just doesn't pay. But of course when Ruthie, my excruciatingly cute date for the evening, exclaimed, "Let's try this one" I of course played the role and followed up with, "Yeah, that looks fun" as I watched her push a few tokens in and take her 5 tickets. "You try it" she said.

Now I normally resist such money wasters as the mine cart game, but if you read the previous paragraph, and I'm sure many of you stopped well before that, you'll remember that Ruthie is fairly easy on the eyes... and if you've read any of my blog entries at all you'll recall that cute girls turn me in to a total tool.

I prepared to throw as many golden circles of joy down the bottomless pit of token eating as it took, but much to my surprise it only took one. The first token slid down the machinery, glided along the rail, and dropped directly in to the coin sized slot as it raced by. The mine cart, full of tokens dumped out, and soon tickets started pouring out of the machine. I believe it was 15 tickets for each token, and the mine cart itself was full.

I'd like to tell you that this was just an unbelievable bit of luck, but between you and I, I think someone upstairs wanted me to win, and when I say someone upstairs I don't mean the cute girl in 12-G... although if she ever wanted to go to PPP with me, I'd probably be down. I mean... I'm just saying if she ever brings it up in conversation you should probably swing the bat for me.

Rachel and Eldad showed up as the tickets continued to flow. Five minutes later kids were walking by with the same large, longing eyes that I get whenever someone drives by a Fry's Electronics without stopping. Security was called in to protect me, and I ended up being forced to sign some tax papers. Apparently I'll have to claim the winnings on a W-2G form come tax season. Rachel was asking me if I was ready to go play something else, but the tickets still hadn't stopped.

Eventually the machine relented and stopped dispensing tickets. Of course the ticket counting machine was broken, so the guy behind the counter said, "I'll give you 1000" which we gladly accepted. With that and the rest of our "winnings" Ruthie scored this sweet flower which now hangs neatly from her closet doors.