The Claw

I dined at a Denny's Diner this afternoon, my first Denny's experience in a few years. The restaurant is called a Denny's Diner, but to me it looked like a regular Denny's. I ordered a Chicken Fiesta, which was a chicken fried steak with a fancy name and a few canned veggies on top. Inside the restaurant's front door is a game where for a dollar you try to grab a stuffed animal with a mechanical claw. It looks easy. It's not. I spent a lot of money on such machines when my daughter was young and I never won, not even once.

Today, a young couple with a boy about four tried to win. The little boy was wide-eyed as Dad deposted a dollar and maneuvered the claw directly over the animal of the boy's desire. Alas, the claw wimped out, failing to grab the toy. The boy was sad.

I asked my waitress if anyone had ever won. "Oh, yes," she said. "A little girl this morning had two dollars and she won two animals." I was surprised. I figured she would say something like, "No, nobody ever has won anything and I have worked here for two years."

My waitress told me that when the man restocks the stuffed animals he packs them tight. "One day I offered him $5 for a really cute toy," she said, "but he wouldn't do it. He said, 'why don't you just put in your $5 in and try to win one.'" But she told me she didn't do it.