The Delicate Art of Helping Your Three-Year-Old Beat Some Teens at Mario Kart

Look, they should have known better.

Photo by Davis Patton on Unsplash

Reminder: Crossplay is on sale until the end of next week, knocking 25% off the price for both monthly and annual subs. Choosing to back, or continuing to back, Crossplay means that I’m able to develop this into a more ambitious project. You can take advantage of the sale here!

This past weekend, my family loaded into the car and trekked to a local Dave and Busters. Traditional arcades are, sadly, mostly dead here, which means expensive and glossy chains like this are what you’re mostly left with. But my kids absolutely eat it up every time we go, and at least they serve really big beers. It’s impossible to game a Dave and Busters like you can Chuck E. Cheese, but there’s still a lot of fun to be had.

It’s also possible to use your children as a tool of mockery, to leverage a small, cute kid to make a bunch of people feel remorse. In other words, I used a three-year-old on my lap during a few sessions of Mario Kart Arcade GP to ruthlessly beat some teens.

It ruled. And I am pathetic.