The $613 Vacation #2- Fun Center

It seems every community of 2,000 in Illinois has some sort of for-profit center where, for a price, families can engage in various amusements. Our community is no exception; in fact, there are three within a 5-mile radius.

For purposes of convenience as well as tasty vittles, we chose Luigi's. The other two centers offer such amusements as roller skating, bowling, and go-carts. The Mister and I were simply not in the mood to participate in any physical activity that day.

The kids, however, enjoyed arcade games of a wide stripe. Luigi's offers a varied assortment, from Whack-A-Mole to Skeeball. We were able to offer the children the opportunity to place many tokens on their machine keys, over $25 each. This was unprecedented in our family! We have been bribed up to $10, but never $25 each. That's a lot of arcade and video games, 100 attempts.

Frankly, my husband and I went to Luigi's to eat pizza and drink beer in the afternoon. We split a pitcher of MGD. We haven't drunk beer in years, and we haven't drunk anything remotely alcoholic in the afternoon in decades. We were only observed by counselors from the local park district, no doubt jealous that we could imbibe while their duties to their 50 or so charges left them without such an alternative.

Total cost for our weekday afternoon of relaxation: $132.