George seeks the "fun" in "fundraiser"

I recently attended a school fundraiser at one of those birthday party emporiums best known for video games and pizza and frantic child-joy; a facility which I will call "Brain Pan Jangles."

The ambiance inside a BPJ is a lot like that of a casino, if only casinos were filled wall to wall by hyperactive, but sober, midgets.

The "clang-clang-clang-clang" of game tokens spilling into cups is identical to slot machines paying out, and the music and blips of kids' video games are creepily similar to those of video poker.

The whole place struck me like some kind of gamblers' training ground for the you-must-be-as-tall-as-this-line crowd; call it Vegas Prep.

"Hit me with your best shot," blared over the sound system as kids scampered past me like rabbits fleeing the fire in "Bambi."

Wailing toddlers, over-excited by noise and flashing video screens, writhed in their mothers' arms like freshly caught squid, wriggled loose, then scurried away into the boiling crowd and were not seen again for half an hour, when they staggered back like 4 a.m. drunks, surprised to be right where they started.

And this was a weeknight.

I could pretty well imagine the manic pitch which weekends must reach, because I have read quite a bit of Dante.

Unlike slot machines, here each video game rewarded the player with prize tickets; sometimes one, sometimes a foot-long spew. As I fed lengths of tickets into the "redemption" machine (playfully named the "ticket gobbler") it indeed made gobbling sounds like it was devouring them lustily.

The casino-esque atmosphere was so intense, out of habit I began to try several different redemption machines to see if one was "looser."

When I printed the receipt, the machine bleated something vaguely congratulatory which I couldn't quite make out, like "Good job, come again, always double-down on eleven!"

Even five hundred tickets only buys you a tiny plastic trinket, but I suppose that is more than the average one-armed bandit pays out.

I waited for an employee to perceive the skull-splitting screech of the emergency exit's alarm, but amid the general cacophony it went unnoticed. Or perhaps employees are selectively bred from birth for their ability to tolerate aural bombardment. Or are issued earplugs upon hire.

Bachman-Turner Overdrive belted "Taking Care of Business" from the wall speakers, followed by "You Ain't See Nothin' Yet." It was like 1974 in there, and I wondered if this was a playlist cynically calculated by the suits to subliminally send Boomers like me into a wallet-emptying reverie.

Overhead, running bent-over through the colorful plastic tubes of a kind of human Habitrail, kids shrieked like hamsters on fire. In fact, kids ran everywhere. It was as if somebody had put up an invisible "Don't walk" sign, with the added instruction, "Run pell mell!"

(Note to self: never try to carry a tray of drinks to your table using only one hand).

Every couple contemplating matrimony should go to Brain Pan Jangles. This would either: a) give them a helpful glimpse of their possible future together, or b) increase contraceptive sales exponentially.

I know what you are thinking—if I have kids, I will never take them to a place like that. I will take them to Walden Pond. We will go see Antietam. Let me tell you something. At Walden Pond, they rent jet skis two-for-one now. Antietam is one big corn dog stand.

No, you will go to BPJ. You will attend a school fundraiser there. You will leave two hours later, reeling, unable to remember your own name, but secure in the knowledge that your child's school can afford…

um…

what was I saying?

Oh yeah, books.