I think I had fun at the time. Upon reflection, I spent too much money for too little gain, and my inability to stop myself loading up my arcade card with more money has proven to me once and for all that I should never step into a casino ever, lest I suffer the flesh-wounds on my bank account from trying to beat the house at its own game. 

  I think I’ve only ever played those sorts of arcade games once, and that was a few weeks after I had a head injury in 2014 – I was not allowed to go go-karting at one of my friend’s birthdays because of…potential head trauma? Breaking stitches? Prophetic visions? I don’t remember. My friend’s parents very generously gave me ten dollars to spend at this go-kart arcade while my friends rammed each other into oblivion on the racetrack.

  I fell in love with the coin-pusher game. It seemed so skill-based, so winnable. And the sound – O, the sound! It was euphoric to the point of decadence.

  But, deep down, my rational mind is telling me that I should never go back. At this particular arcade franchise, you don’t actually get to keep the coins you collect. Catch enough of them and a definitely-not-rigged wheel spins, giving you anything from 5 to 50 extra coins to shoot. Catch the additional tokens that are in there and you’ll get some tickets – some extortionately worthless tickets.

  Then, once you’ve played all the games and spent exuberant amounts of money (fifty dollars, in my case), you get to spend your tickets on highly perishable items that are worth maybe a hundredth of what you spent on playing the arcade games. After playing at this arcade for two hours, I had just under three hundred tickets. That got me (after literally twenty minutes of deliberation) a tiny magnifying glass (30c), some butterfly hairclips ($2), and the foulest “food” I’ve ever eaten (80c).

  This elongated stick of “blue raspberry zombie” candy had the texture of stale putty and the taste of utterly refined and processed sugar. An absolutely horrendous piece of filth.

  I made a $46.90 loss. Was it worth it?