Pepe-roni

It was my good friend Pepe's birthday Thursday. On Friday afternoon, I was invited to help celebrate Pepe's big day by joining him, his sister Sarah, and Sarah's friend Jolene at Chuck E. Cheese in Layton.

Yes, that wasn't a typo: Chuck E. Cheese, a place I hadn't visited in perhaps two decades. You're never too old to get back in touch with your childhood - right? - so I was happy to tag along for the excursion.

The pizza was good but not great, and more video/arcade games than not were geared toward the elementary school-aged set. I think we were the only ones our age there who didn't bring their kids along. But, at Chuck E. Cheese, it's all about the environment.

We particularly enjoyed posing in front of the blue screen - similar to the kind that TV weathermen use for their forecasts - which put us in the middle of some sort of Chuck E. Cheese music video. (I don't remember the names of all of the creatures involved, but one of them, we agreed, was a cross between Barney and Cookie Monster.)

Here's Pepe, showing how it was done:



Here's my attempt at it:



I also tried to do my best Phil Connors (the weatherman played by Bill Murray in Groundhog Day) impersonation:


We are on our knees for these shots because, well, we were about twice the height of most of the kids who used the screen.

As we ate lunch, it suddenly became "birthday parade" time (or whatever it's called) at Chuck E. Cheese. This involved the kids who were celebrating birthdays joining Chuck E. for a song and dance in front of everybody. We encouraged Pepe to join with them, but he declined. As these kids' ages were shown on the TV screen, we noticed that none of them was older than 14.

Pepe is, well, a few years older than that.

After lunch, we played several of the games in the arcade area. Sarah and Jolene won several tickets for our gang - which we later traded in for Pop Rocks - with a "Simpsons"-themed pinball-type game. It turns out that Pepe is quite the skilled skee-ball player.