Game Time for Grown-ups

My most meaningful form of self-help right now involves an afternoon of Skee-Ball, Super Shot, Pac-Man, and a double-pepperoni flatbread from the Shareables menu—all punched into my Dave Buster’s Power Card

IT IS GENERALLY BAD PRACTICE TO TAKE sitcom theme songs at their word. But ever since Cheers debuted, our culture has normalized the idea that sometimes we want to go where everybody knows our name. As a lifelong extrovert in his 50s, I must be clear: Your general outlook about wanting to go where everybody knows your name will change once they know your name at Walgreens. My pharmacist and I have known each other by name for some time, but now whenever I approach the counter, she just says, "The usual?" (Statins, for the record. Neat.)

Sometimes you want to go where there is zero chance anyone will even ask your name, and if there is Skee-Ball at this place, all the better. This is why in the year 2024, I have adopted my dumbest habit yet, and I am a grown man with a favorite scratchoff ticket. I now go-no more than once a week but also no less than once a week to Dave & Buster's for a weekday lunch. By myself. And I love it.

To paraphrase Ray Parker Jr.: Dave & Bustin' makes me feel good.

The whole thing began with Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way, a 12-week "spiritual path to higher creativity" I've been doing with a Zoom accountability group. One weekly assignment is to take yourself on an "artist date," to find an activity nourishing to the artist within. I was having trouble coming up with ideas, and after I took my inner artist to see Saltburn, our relationship was strained. I closed my eyes, and my soul spoke in images: That familiar blue-and orange logo came into focus. Oh, so you are an idiot, I whispered to my inner artist. Thank God.