This is my new friend Ralph. He used to live in a novelty t-shirt store in Ocean City, MD, but he hated it there so I took him home with me. Soon, the two of us will be leaving for Paris, which we're both very excited about. Today I took Ralph to Playland at the Boardwalk; this is a chronicle of his adventures there.
The first thing Ralph wanted to do was get his picture taken in a photo booth, but the stool wasn't nearly high enough for the camera to see him. Then he thought he wanted to walk through the mirror maze, but it turned out to be way too scary for him in there. So it was onto the games: Ralph seemed surprisingly good at shooting and racing, but he had a little trouble mastering air hockey (as he fit squarely inside the mallet). Another game he had difficulty with was skee-ball.... That is, until he figured out how to crawl inside the "50" hole and give himself a perfect score. He must've gotten a big head about it, because he challenged the strong man robot to a duel and ended up in a headlock!
At this point, Ralph was out of money. He looked in the change machine for extra quarters, but to no avail, so he headed to the cash machine with MY debit card. But then came the moment of terror - Ralph witnessed his stuffed animal cousins trapped inside of jail-type glass rooms! He tried and tried to free them, but it was almost like those bears didn't even want to leave. He attempted to save Elmo and his friends from the claw machine (which he knew about in advance because, like all creatures of his kind, he's seen Toy Story three times), but then the claw came after Ralph and he gave up.
Sadly, when it came time to collect his prizes from playing all these games, all Ralph could afford were plastic centipedes. And Ralph HATES bugs (plastic or not). So he went home empty-handed, but he did tell me it was the best day ever. Here's hoping our Paris trip is even better!
