Cinco de Mayo league night at Electric Bat Arcade was a full-on pinball fever dream.
Started the night feeling pretty solid.
On X-Men I was landing skill shots, started a mode, got a multiball, and plugging along nicely. Ended up pulling a 2nd place with 22 million, which honestly felt good considering that game can turn into complete chaos in a hurry.
Whirlwind was still my emotional support machine of the night though. Every Arizonan loves Whirlwind because it comes with built-in air conditioning. Revenge game energy activated and I managed a respectable 3rd there after getting bullied around earlier in the night.
Then Rush happened.
Rush apparently decided it was hosting a private prog-rock space marathon for Nick and Noah while the rest of us tried to survive long enough to collect emotional support points.
Nick casually dropped a 225 million monster game while Noah nearly hit 100 million.
Meanwhile I managed to start Limelight, fought through overplunges, monkeyed around trying to regain control, and limped my way to 8 million while praying Kenny would “not get jiggy” on his final ball. Kenny absolutely got jiggy and blasted past me anyway. 😂
Then came the sudden shift from modern LCD chaos to old-school EM brutality on Cleopatra. After Rush, stepping up to a vintage Gottlieb felt like being told: “Okay, enough spaceship lights. Time for ancient Egyptian suffering.”
But honestly? EMs reward patience, nudging, and staying calm, and somehow I quietly slid into 2nd place with the only six-digit score besides Nick’s.
Still counts. 😄
Other important events from the evening:
• My dinosaur dress and dinosaur earrings were apparently a hit and got photographed for somebody’s daughter and friends.
• A 12-year-old pinball shark with a Polaroid camera kept trying to sell me a photo for a dollar while simultaneously beating adults at pinball.
• Salsa Queen brought a salsa tasting station, which may have saved morale for half the room.
•The pinball people-watching was top-tier all night long.
League nights are always funny because they’re part competition, part social gathering, part emotional support group, and part public science experiment about how humans react to silverballs and flashing lights.
Incidental Exercise Receipts
Finished the night sitting in the giant middle-pack cluster at 17 points, which honestly feels pretty fitting for a night full of chaos, recovery games, weird momentum swings, good laughs, some incidental exercise, and “still counts” energy.
Some nights you dominate.
Some nights you survive.
Some nights you survive while wearing a dinosaur dress listening to “Puff the Magic Dragon” while a child hustles Polaroids in the background.
That’s pinball. 🎯💜
Still counts.
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Monday Pinball Shower Thoughts on Weekly Reads