$125 down the drain

chris25810

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My son came home for spring break a few days ago and he's had some of his buddies over for guy shit and video games. We just carried my freshly restored Missile Command downstairs monday night and two days later one of his dumbass friends has ruined the left sideart with a barstool. These stools are large with wood/metal backs and they swivel. and there were several areas where the repeated twisting of the chair took the art completely off and down to bare wood. When i asked "why in the hell you didn't just slide the game out of the way instead of repeatedly dragging the back of the stool against my cabinet" i got the deer in the headlight look and an "i dunno"

None of them are claiming responsibility so my son will be coughing up the cash before he goes back to school. Little bastards!
 
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After causing less severe, but still noticeable, damage to my own cabs, I've just learned to chill out and be less of a perfectionist with my stuff. $hit happens, grab a beer and play some Missile Command. Enjoy your games, that's my philosophy nowadays.
 
Well that sux but at least your making him pay for it....I wonder how many stories there are out there like yours. I know I always worried about people (not into the hobby) over for a party or what not.
 
Agreed..

I agree...kids do dumb shit...I used to be FANATICAL about my games. For the first 10 years I collected I wouldn't even let anyone else turn them on unless I was present. It get worse than that...but I won't go into details..

Then when my 4 year old daughter was 2 years old she would get very excited watching me play Space Ace (she like the cartoon look). I had a fully restored SA machine. Well, she was sitting on my lap with a sippy cup FULL of juice when the top of it just popped off (must not have been on tight) and the full cup spilled all over the NOS control panel..into the NOS joystick..all over the NOS buttons...etc...

She looked up at me, I looked down at her, and she said "Ace go uh-oh"....I just started cracking up...cleaned it best I could...when I went to sell the machine I ordered a new CPO, buttons, joystick..stuck them on..and there you go...

Ever since then it doesn't phase me if someone accidentally does something...like the time my stupid best friend and his brother were wrestling around when we moved into my house (they were helping us) and dropped my cocktail table off the side of the truck! Smashed the glass, monitor cracked...oh man...he just looked at me and said, "Dude, whatever it costs I will pay for it.." and he did...one year later! LOL...

Later,

Jess
 
i swear kids now a days have less respect than ever. hopefully your son chooses better friends from now on.

also keep in mind kids do do stupid shizzle, and we were all kids at one point.
 
All his friends know that i'm pretty anal about my games however they can play them whenever they want and the only real rules i have are no drinks and do not abuse my shit or you're done. This was just plain stupidity, disrespect and somebody has to pay.
 
Make him play Battlezone for 12 hours straight. It'll never happen again...

lol doesn't work, when i was a kid my dad made me play nintendo (NES) for 24 hours straight to try and break me of it. there's a possibility that it made things worse lol :D .
 
Man that blows. I get where people are coming from with young children and mistakes but I'm pretty sure that's not the case here. I think Chris's son and friends are probably old enough to know better.
 
I my never do a full restore because of such so called accidents. My wife and kids have put bumps and bruises on my games all the time it seems. When I bitch about it, my wife says "that's what happens when you have a bunch shit taking up space". Ha ha

O'well glad she still let's me collect them

JJ
 
After causing less severe, but still noticeable, damage to my own cabs, I've just learned to chill out and be less of a perfectionist with my stuff. $hit happens, grab a beer and play some Missile Command. Enjoy your games, that's my philosophy nowadays.

Well said! That's me too.
I actually have a similar Missile Command sideart story:
It was my first ever sideart attempt and since I was very worried, I let my brother help because he does have experience with boat repair/decals etc... I'll suffice to say it was pretty bad and I ended up ordering another side. Can't remember what I paid a few years ago since I've tried to block out the $$$ I blew in the beginning.
 
I've had kids hang on the joysticks and snap them right out of the cabinet. It was during a 4th of July party a few years ago. No big really. I just put in another joystick.

Sorry your game was gouged down to the wood. That just sucks.

Tom
 
i thought it would be cool to have real arcade games to platy with my buddies but ironically enough young guys and arcade games do not mix. for that matter, young guys dont mix with anything, nice, valuable, something you spent alot of time on, ect ect ect.
 
I don't think I'd make my son pay for it. I'd make him do most of the labor, with some direction, to fix and replace it. That way we'd spend some time together and hopefully he'd understand a little better about the time and effort we all put into this hobby.
 
The root cause was the metal on the back of the chair - make sure you cover it somehow so the incident can't be repeated. That chair could do the same thing to another cab or a wall. I've seen adults do the same kind of damage without thinking.

Bill
 
It's even worse when you SPECIFICALLY tell someone a rule and they ignore it. Case in point, my friend who can't seem to get that CPs are NOT "built in drink holders". One day during a VS. match of Virtual On (the game with the huge slanted control panels) the top popped off of his Coke and got all over his pants in the middle of the game. Sure, I had to clean up the CPO, but he lost so miserably because of it that it was a glorious "and that's why not" moment. Never had to deal with soda on my CPs again 8)
 
Tell your son that his friends can't use the barstools anymore. Make 'em play standing up just like the old-school arcade gamers use to do! If they want to sit, tell 'em to go sit on the couch and play Atari 2600! When they say "What's THAT?", start swinging!
 
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