Turning Nothing Into Something

Almost every time my co-worker asks me what I am doing on the weekend, I have the same one word answer: exploring. I'm not sure why, but she finds this hilarious. Is exploring only something adolescences do in their parent's backyard? Eh. Maybe my wording isn't the best, but what I mean to say is simply that I'm checking out something new. Whether I am just walking around a city I have never been to or riding every roller coaster in an old-timey theme park, to me it is just exploring.

Steven and I just love to "explore" new places and things with each other. In fact, I'd say that is what we do together most often.

We love not knowing what to expect. We either discover something great or as Steven points out, we discover something awful but end up with a great story to tell people. Those stories will have to be another post. The point is, it's always an adventure when we try something new. However, there are a few things that we do habitually. My absolute favorite of those things is visiting an arcade. This began when we first started dating. We had a lot of fun playing games. Skeeball being the all-time favorite for both of us. But wait, here comes the best part...

When we were done playing games, we realized that we both had a bunch of tickets in our hands and we didn't know what to do with them. We didn't have to look at the prize counter for very long to know that we weren't going to get much. Prizes are fun and all, but neither of us had much need for a miniature plastic slinky or a 4-pack of Now and Laters. Steven suggested that we give them to a kid and I was delighted at the idea. We found a cute little girl with just a few tickets in her hand and we passed our tickets onto her. We've been doing it ever since. We spend very little money at arcades, maybe $10 each time. We have a lot of fun and would gladly pay $10 just for that, but we also get to bring a pleasant surprise to a child. It may not be much, but what means basically nothing to us can be the difference between a ice cream cone shaped eraser and a real-sized Whoopie Cushion to a child in an arcade. I get really excited now when we win tickets and I can't wait to look around the room to find someone to give them too. It's an excellent tradition!