The Best Birthday Gift... 12 Years In the Making

Keller recently celebrated his 5th birthday. It was on a Monday, so we had his "party" on Saturday. I promise more about that in a future blog. I wanted to share something comical that happened on his actually birthday. We went to the mecca that holds all sorts of magical fun... Gattiland! As you all know, the best part about Mr. Gatti's is getting to play all the games. Side note: I loathe Mr. Gatti's, at least the game room. It might be one of the more disgusting places on earth and every time I'm in there I feel like I'm going to walk away with strep throat. Perhaps it was because of that time I saw a toddler riding the carousel in only a diaper, that looked like it had not been changed in days. However, it was Keller's birthday so I gave in. When the rest of the family finally met up with Keller and Tyler in the game room they were already in full gaming mode. I think Tyler's exact words were, "We are killing it in here!" He may have been more excited than Keller! As the token count went down, it was time to count the tickets. He had 339! That was the best he had ever done. Enter Kelsey, AKA Aunt Lou. She starts in on how when she was younger she had hundreds of tickets and she never remembered spending them. So naturally, she walks to the prize counter to ask. The whole time I'm thinking, "Yeah right, there is no way they are still going to have her in the system." She tells the attendant her name, and after a blood draw, hair sample and promising her first born they divulge her ticket count. She had almost 3,000 tickets! At this point I think I screamed out with laughter. If you know Kelsey, you would not think this was weird or peculiar. She was always the kid with birthday money left, months after her birthday was over. Plus, I had this image of her spending her summer days holed up in the Mr. Gatti's game room while all the others kids were outside being normal. Why wouldn't she have a Mr. Gatti's savings account?!? We asked if we were able to transfer the tickets to Keller and they were happy to oblige, only after deducting 200 tickets for not having her official Mr. Gatti's ID card. Because we all carry that on us at all times! I was still not believing that they actually had her in the system. In fact they said she opened it in 1998! So, twelve years later, Keller was able to get the coveted Spider Man Web Flinger. Despite the HUGE birthday he had, that web flinger from Mr. Gatti's was the best gift ever. Who would have thought that when Kelsey was racking up the tickets she would be able to pass those on to her nephew twelve years later!