Quarters

Alright It's Wednesday... I have nothing to blog about..nor any photos to post.  So I'll post something totally random...

When we were little girls we used to LOVE to play at the quarter machines outside of walmart...or any restaurant that had them.  You know what ones I'm talking about?  The ones that had all the cheap toys inside the plastic ball??  And the ones with the "claw"??  I could probably buy a house with all the quarters I've wasted in those machines or at least build a house of stuffed animals because I did have an uncany ability to get a stuffed animal every time in the "claw" machine...  I should put that on my resume under "special Skills...."

So have you ever experienced this??  ...you haven't thought of something in years and then all the sudden the topic is brought up 5 times in a week?  Or haven't ever heard a word before and then you hear it 4 or 5 times shortly after that??  Well this happened to me on the quarter machines last week.  I haven't thought about those things in years and then all of the sudden they are brought up everywhere!  It's like God wants me to think about quarter machines??

This weekend We ate at a restaurant that had a claw and Mom bet me I couldn't get a stuffed animal...and I didn't!!  This was very unusual for me given my past history.  It was like the claw didn't work like it used to...   Then yesterday there was a special on TV talking about how the claw machines are rigged so that when you press the button for the claw to grab it gains pressure to close then immediatley looses pressure so it can't hold on to the prize...what cheaters!!

The second quarter machine flash back I had was when mom brought up the story of the "army man"  I had totally forgotten about this story... You may not find it as funny as I did but you just have to know my sister to find it funny...  This Sister (The "Middle" child)  ha..  See we were at a restaurant and they had a quarter machine.  The front of the machine showed all the cool prizes you might win like a super cool tatoo, or a shiny ring, or some soldier figurines for boys...  I was probably about 8 or so and Leah was 5 ish.  We had gotten a quarters from mom and we got some pretty cool cheap prizes that would probably end up under the seat of the car in .5 minutes... Well  Leah had her eye on something in that machine and apparenly she hadn't gotten it yet with all the other quarters she had spent so she begged for one last quarter to use on our way out the door.  She just knew she was going to put that quarter in and get exactly what she wanted.  

When we got in the car Leah had a pout on her face and was real quiet for the ride home, which was unsual... Mom finally asked her what was wrong and she replied.   "I got a STUPID army man!"  ...I don't know why that makes me laugh but it was just really funny. 

We loved those quarter machines...we colleced smiley face stickers...tattoos to wear on our arms during softball tournaments, and of course wads of gumballs!!

The tattos had to be fierce if we wanted to look cool during softball season!!  The smiley faces went on my mirror and if you had more than your friends you were really cool...

I'm prettty sure gretchen has inherited many of the stuffed animals won at thoses claw machines...most of them are headless :)  

 So was I the only weird kid that was obsessed with those machines???