Over the weekend I embarrassed myself so badly that I wanted to crawl in a hole and disappear. 

On Sunday, my friends and I went to the Detention at the Elementary. Our plan was to play laser tag and some of the arcade games and it was really fun until I humiliated myself. There was a game where you were supposed to drop 50 red balls into rotating buckets in a short amount of time. If you dropped all 50 in the buckets before time ran out without dropping any, you won the jackpot of 1,000 tickets. 

I played this game multiple times and always ended up missing a few in the buckets and only getting around 30 tickets. My friend tried playing it and she got at least 40 in the buckets, but when it came time for the tickets it said she only got 16 in the buckets and gave her 10 tickets. Something was obviously wrong with the game. Instead of being logical and determining something was wrong with the game and not playing it again, I instead decided to use all of my brain power to win it. 

I swiped my token card and began playing it again. This time I was absolutely crushing it. I had not dropped one ball and I was doing great on time. I ended up getting all 50 in the buckets without dropping a single one which should have earned me 1,000 tickets. When the screen showed me how many tickets I was getting, the screen said I only got 16 balls in the buckets and it only gave me 10 tickets. 

Since I deserved my 1,000 tickets, I went and got an employee. I, a nearly 24-year-old woman (officially 24 on March 5 if anyone was curious), went and got a teenage employee and explained that I got all the red balls in the buckets and didn’t even drop one and that I earned 1,000 tickets. I started by saying, “I hate to be the person to complain about tickets, but …” After the dust settled in my brain and I realized I was being kind of ridiculous over 1,000 tickets I was mortified, but I couldn’t stop. 

The employee was so nice, but I just felt like the entire time I was telling them what happened they didn’t believe me. Getting the balls in the bucket was pretty impressive, so I understand why they might have thought I was lying. I was hoping the fact that I am a grown-up and not a 12-year-old child would help my case, but I just knew they thought I was a liar. The employee told me she would go ask someone and I continued to apologize for being a bother. 

While we were waiting I was continuously checking with my friends to make sure I was not crazy and to confirm that they saw what I saw. While I was explaining that I think they thought I was lying, my friend said, “Why would you lie just to get a stuffed animal?” My friend did not know the employees were right behind her. I had to explain what happened again to a different employee who looked like he believed me even less, but he did give me the tickets. 

Everyone was very nice to me, but I was sort of humiliated about being so invested in 1,000 tickets. 

Standard reporter Bethany Porter can be reached at (931) 473-2191.