Nickel! Nickel!

Video games please me, they do. I have a weakness in this area that is immune to almost any degree of strength that I might muster up for resistance. Given that, you can imagine my glee when a friend proposed a jaunt to the video arcade last week! That friend we’ll call Cassidy.

Would you believe that a place exists where a guy can play a video game for a nickel? Would you believe that some games could even be played for free? Of course not. Foolishness to let one’s mind get lost in such bacchanalian thought. But it does exist, this place!

The name of the arcade is Nickel! Nickel! There was an entrance fee which got me off to a skeptical start. Skeptical, but not yet jaded, was I. When I was advised the fee was a meager $1.95 per person, I withheld the skepticism until further cause. Next step was coinage with which one was to feed the machines. It was here I noticed the bags of nickels behind the counter. The games actually worked on nickels! And with that, my fear that I’d been roped in under embellished promises slipped away like hunger at an all you can eat pizza deal. Admittedly, some games required the insertion of as many as four nickels! The horror. But most of the games that I wanted to play were entirely free! Truly free.

The games from my youth, apparently, get very little foot traffic as these games were the freebies. Centipede, Galaga, Tetris, Ms. Pac-Man (Pac Man was not present) and others were available at no charge. The majority of the games were newer video games, or at least from the 1990s and more recent. Would’ve been nice if the video gaming availability from my era were better represented (i.e., Joust, Berzerk, Asteroids, Bosconian). But legend has it another Nickel! Nickel! video arcade exists. Per’aps also this desired vintage representation.

To stand in the arcade and experience the relentless drumming ambient noise resonating from each machine no longer has the enticing embrace I experienced over two decades ago during my gaming era. More like a headache inducing throb to my older self of today. It took over two hours before I was sated and able to make a safe means of egress.

Nickel! Nickel! I hope to be seeing you again soon.
-klem