Chuck E. Cheese Token

Lyrics

The smell hits you first.
Stale pizza, floor cleaner, and a little kid's birthday party desperation.
Mom hands you a fistful of warm brass.
Go play.

Charles Entertainment Cheese.
Look at him smiling on the coin.
Not a quarter. Not a dime.
This is company scrip.
This is mining town money.
Good for one thing, in one place.
Nolan Bushnell's little experiment.
He gave us Atari, then he gave us our first job.
Your pocket's heavy with potential.
A whole five dollars' worth.

Your whole body is in it.
The Skee-Ball lean, the perfect roll.
Hundred points.
The machine spits out tickets like a prayer answered.
Ten of 'em.
You feed the mouse another token.
Whack-a-Mole, your wrist aches.
Keep feeding the machine.
This is labor. Don't let 'em tell you it's a game.
This is earning your keep.

The brass mouse. The pizza rat.
He taught us economics.
Taught us the exchange rate on desire.
A thousand tickets for a lava lamp that don't work.
A hundred for a plastic dragon made in a country you can't pronounce.
The first time you learned your work wasn't worth what you thought it was.

You walk up to the counter.
The promised land behind plexiglass.
All the cheap plastic jewels of the earth.
The girl behind it looks tired of the math.
You dump your ticket wad.
She counts.
"You can get... the sticky hand, or three pieces of candy."
All that sweat.
For a sticky hand that'll lose its stick by the time you reach the car.

Then one day, it's gone. 2016.
They give you a card. A Play Pass.
Just swipe.
No more clink. No more weight.
No more counting the treasure in your palm.
It's cleaner now. Efficient.
They can track your every move.
But they can't teach you what that greasy brass taught you.
The feel of a hustle. The weight of being had.

Yeah.
Thanks for the lesson, Chuck.
Or should I say Rick Rat?
Knew you were a rat from the start.