Crane Game
First published 9/2/1999

Oh, sure, video lottery's bad. It's addictive. It creates problem gamblers. But VLT's aren't the only machines out there designed to separate you from your money. There's another scourge, just as insidious, just as addictive, and -- for me, anyway -- far more likely to vacuum up the loonies.

I'm talking about the crane game. The one where you grab cheesy prizes out of a big Plexiglas cube using a mechanical claw. It sits there, lurking, in the most innocuous places. In the mall. Outside the family breakfast restaurant. Even in Zellers. Behind that evil Plexiglas its stuffed toys sit, mocking me. Their faces -- licensed from several major media organizations -- cry out to me: "Play the claw, play the claw!" Oh yes, I am a problem crane game gambler.

The prizes, I think, that are the worst thing about my addiction. Say what you want about VLT's, at least they offer a prize people actually want -- money. I'm addicted to a game that offers me a chance to win crap. Cheesy stuffed toys made in third world sweatshops. I don't need a tweety bird, or a soft novelty football. If they offered to sell me one outright, I wouldn't spend a nickel on it. But put that same cheap prize in a cube, hang a claw over it, and offer me a chance to win it and I'm at the Smitty's counter getting change for a five. I'm sick!

It's not the prize that's got me hooked. It's the claw. It's the thrill of lining it up, using the joystick to set it just right, then pushing that button and -- Geronimo! -- dropping it towards glory or defeat.

Let me tell you something about that claw. It's incredibly weak. The prize has to be just the right shape, and can't be held down by any of the other prizes. I don't care if you're the best liner-upper in the world, if you get greedy and pick the wrong prize, it'll slip through the claw's fingers and you will be a loser. Claw hubris, that's what we claw addicts call it.

There's something fishy about that claw being so weak. I find it hard to believe that at this late date in history scientists can't build a better claw. In 2004, NASA is sending another robotic probe to Mars to retrieve rock samples, and for their sake, I hope they're using better claw technology. Otherwise, the rocks are going to keep slipping through the probe's fingers and everyone at mission control is going to get all flustered and cheesed off and eventually they'll run out of loonies.

Still, weak claw or not, they could probably call me up and I'd have a go at it. Because once a claw addict, always a claw addict. Hopefully, someday, there'll be a number I can call for help. Posters reminding me that fun fur-covered crap isn't worth the spare change. Hopefully, someday, there will be an organization, willing to line up the helping hand, drop it down into the mire of my addiction, and pull me free -- provided I'm exactly the right shape and nothing else is holding me down.

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