Pinball wizard

Way back when I was a teenager, video arcades were all the rage. There was one at the mall where I worked. It all started with Asteroids and grew explosively from there.

I spent way too many of my hard-earned quarters on such classics as Pac-Man and his lady friend, Centipede, Galaxian, Tetris, Gauntlet (loved the flying ostriches!), Dig Dug, Q*bert, Frogger... the list goes on. My favorite type of arcade entertainment of all, however, was always pinball machines.

My favorite type of pinball machines are the ones with multiple levels and chutes and multi-ball bonus rounds. Lots of lights, sounds, and activity. A good pinball machine has a lot of "action" in the flippers. You have to be able to catch the ball on the flippers and the machine shouldn't tilt with the slightest movement of your hands and body.

We recently learned that there is a pinball museum not too far from home. You pay one fee and engage in unlimited play on the machines. Each machine has a placard with its date of manufacture and a short description. We took Neatnik over the weekend.

Quite a few of the machines were antiques and their flippers had long since lost their responsiveness. One in particular, however, was vintage 2005 and it met all of my criteria for a good pinball machine.

I don't even like this show!

We stayed for an hour and I spent most of my playing time on that one machine.

My shoulder joints are still aching days later!