forum "You DO like me!" "I don't think 'like' is the right word." "You tolerate me." "Maybe." one on one

Started January 29, 2021 by @cryptic-glitch

tune

"Press the big red button when you think that sweeper arm will knock a roll of tickets off the ledge there."

"Okay…" Lin stuck the coin in the machine and watched closely, still pretty confused. After a few seconds, he pressed the button and watched to see if anything happened.

The sweeper arm inched a few stacks of tickets closer to the edge, but none of them fell off. "See, I told you it's hard."

"Mm… yeah. You should try! I'm sure you're better at it than me."

"Eh. I doubt that." Nonetheless, she gave it a shot, getting the same result as Lin. "The issue with this game is you just want to keep doing it until you win."

"Yeah, I guess so… we don't want to waste our money on something impossible, though."

"It isn't impossible. That's what's so addictive about it. My sister's won this game like eight times!"

"Well, feel free to keep going, then. I won't stop you." Lin shrugged a bit.

"I can't because then I'll waste all our tokens. And I probably won't win anything."

"Don't keep going, then. I really don't know what you want me to tell you here."

"I was just saying something. To jazz it up. I don't know. Let's do the claw now. You can win stuffed animals."

"Alright. Is there any in particular you're wanting to win?" He asked.

"Nah. Well, the frog in the corner is cute. But I don't know if I can get it. I mean I could hotwire the machine, but that seems a little bit rude."

"Yeah… how do you do it?" Lin asked, looking into the machine curiously.

"Right. Token goes in, you use this little joystick to position the claw, red button makes the claw go down and then it does the rest." She demonstrated with an attempt to get the frog and missed. "Well, shit."

"The claw thing seems pretty weak… are you sure it isn't broken?" He asked, watching closely and seeming confused. "I'm not sure it could lift anything up."

"Yeah. The game is sort of rigged against you. My mom is really good at it, though."

"Hm… I guess it's possible, then, but… intended to make you lose. What's the fun in making a game you can't win?"

"It makes it seem like you can win. It whets your appetite and then takes the snack away."

"But if everyone knows that, then why do they even play it? You know you're being tricked."

"Because you can get so goddamn close to winning, so you think you can win the second time you play, and it just goes downhill."

"Mm." Lin still looked pretty confused. "Seems like it would be better to not start in the first place, then."

"I know. I just like that frog."

"Alright, then by all means, continue."

Orion tried a few more times, and finally, she got the frog out of the machine.

"Nice! Now we can go do something else, yeah?"

"Yeah. Any particular game? Anything you noticed?"

Lin shrugged a bit. "I really don't know what they are."

"Hm. Well. Pick one that looks interesting. There's Whack-a-Mole, that zombie shooting game, uhm . . . Fruit Ninja. . ."

"I'll play whatever you want me to play, Orion." Lin shrugged.