The Claw Machine
My daughter loves stuffed animals. No. That’s an understatement. She absolutely adores them. All of her stuffed animals have a story from her Beanie Baby (™) monkey that was given to her mere hours after she was born to the much larger wearable monkey given to her by her Grandmother. Each one has a story to tell of how they became part of the family.
One evening we went to eat pizza at the local pizzeria with a small arcade. There just so happened to be a claw machine. The claw machine was full of cute stuffed animals just waiting to be adopted by someone who possessed a certain set of skills and plenty of quarters because it is seldom you win on the first try. Raegan happened to catch a glimpse at a pink teddy bear in the machine and proceeded to talk about it non-stop. This was expected behavior since she loves to discuss stuffed animals. I foolishly thought that once we got to our table and began to eat that she would forget about the bear. No such luck. She proceeded to talk even more about the teddy bear. We figured that if we wanted to eat in peace we would have to do something.
For me, there is no greater joy than to give your child what they want. Both my husband and I love to play the claw machine, but we play with a strategy. We only go for winnable prizes. Most prizes are not winnable. For a stuffed animal to be a good candidate, it needs to be at the top of the pile and lying horizontally with nothing pinning it down. As luck would have it, the teddy bear looked like it could be won, but we only had a $1 which would give us only one chance at snagging the bear.
My husband pulled out his wallet and grabbed the only money he had - a $1 bill. After looking at the excitement on our daughter’s face he handed me the lone $1 to try to win it. I can only reason that he did not want to be the bad guy for not winning the bear and assumed that our daughter would sooner forgive Mommy for not winning the teddy bear than Daddy. I was nervous about trying since we'd only have one shot and thinking how to explain this to my daughter. I thought disappointment is sadly a lesson we will learn many times. So I fed the machine my $1 and then lined up the claw. Not all claw machines are created equally. The best claw machines will allow you to stop the claw machine as it plunges down. This gives the claw operator a chance to readjust the claw by moving it. I wasn't exactly sure if this was one of those machines you could stop the claw in its descent, so I pressed the descent button, hoping to stop it and I could realign. That didn't work, and the claw continued to travel down into the pool of stuffed animals. I just knew that I wouldn't win the bear since it appeared the claw was not close enough to the bear.
Somehow the claw wrapped around the bear's body and hoisted him up. I couldn't believe that I had picked up the bear on my first try. Picking up the bear is only the first obstacle as the claw arm must successfully carry the prize to the drop bin. I held my breath as the claw traveled to the drop-off point. The claw moved closer almost like the bear was a vicious predator that the claw desperately wanted to get rid of. Somehow the bear held on and made the scary five-second ride. The claw opened and down fell the beloved pink teddy bear of my daughter’s dreams.
My daughter loved that bear and was so happy for the rest of the evening. Then the teddy bear came home and was loved on for a few days with the love and intensity that only a four-year-old can give. Although she may have forgotten about the bear, there is no denying that the bear held a special place in her heart if only for less than a week. It was all made possible because of one dollar and some skillful luck.
