Every summer, the family goes to Sea Isle City, NJ for vacation. It’s on the southernmost shores of Jersey, separated from the mainland by swampy harbor areas and it’s not nearly as New Jersey-y as punch lines would have you believe. We get a house near a beach and we swim and eat ice cream and play mini-golf, and a good time is had by all.

Much to my personal delight, the whole area is also full of arcades around every turn, from the boardwalks in our own little town all the way to the amusement parks of Wildwood. So, I was intensely disappointed to find out that every single arcade has almost completely done away with all of their video games, and replaced them all with crappy machines that invite you to win redeemable tickets. Of course, these tickets are subsequently handed to the smarmy teenager at the counter who’d rather be at the beach as they wait impatiently for various 8 year olds to decide exactly which cheap, plastic spider ring they’ll going to cash in 20 bucks worth of tickets for. Spider ring breaks five minutes later.

Still, I can’t say I dislike the sounds of skeeball or machines bleeping and blooping away everywhere.

I have great memories of hanging out in these arcades and playing (and beating) Golden Axe and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Simpsons and X-Men – but they were nowhere to be found. There was the random Mr. Do machine unplugged in a corner, and a few enormous $2 games that involved shooting aliens, as well as some excellent pinball machines, but everything was motivated by prizes and mini-avarice. There was no true FUN to be found. Are people making arcade games anymore? I know that there are a few new pinball machines out there, and I love ‘em.

With my quest for fun totally thwarted (and sporting a beard that made me look like a guy who isn’t hanging around arcades for the games), I turned my attention to greater goals. I’d spend my quarters on winning tokens from every kiddie casino I could find.

Over the course of one week, I managed to collect seven different tokens. While many machines paid out in cheap paper tickets, slot machines are the only holdover from my youth. These things always paid out in tokens – probably because it’s way cheaper to just keep the tokens in circulation than to retrofit the machines to spit out tickets. The machines that HAVE been retrofitted are lying jerks and I want my quarters back.

And it wasn’t easy. While just about every slot machine spat out a token or three on the first try, getting them out of the arcade was a different matter entirely. These tokens have been in circulation for years. The arcade owners rely upon the fact that they’re won, cashed in, and replaced into their machines. Some of these are thin aluminum, but the older ones are definitely made of heavier alloys. So, there’s usually an attendant wandering around the alleys of slot machines keeping an eye on you, for this and plenty of other reasons. Sea Isle City might be nice, but the boardwalks have a very significant creep factor – and after dark in Wildwood is an eerie reflection of the seething, bizarre underbelly of bored youth culture.

More than once, I had to pretend that I saw someone outside waving to me and hop on out of the mini-casino, a few tokens quietly in hand. I’m like a James Bond without the goals or sex appeal or cool name or skill at killing people (that I know of). This made the rewards even better, and the extras I ended up with I gave to my niece and cousins as ‘pirate gold’.

But there’s another great aspect of going to the nethers of NJ. The Garden State Parkway is full of rest stops, and many include a penny pressing machine. There’s something very, very American about pressing a penny of The Statue of Liberty at a machine packed next to a busy restroom and a shop that sells bootleg sunglasses, as QVC plays on the TV hovering over the Roy Rogers in Cheesequake, NJ.

The amusement parks at Wildwood didn’t yield such great results, though. Despite having a few machines to commemorate conquering various rides and coasters, they were either out of order or pressed the pennies so off-mark that they were unreadable, and a very powerful reminder of how miserable I was that particular day for no particular reason. Possibly the fifteen-cheese lasagna that we traditionally eat because the family believes that my lactose intolerance is a fairy tale.

I try not to make acquisition the focus of my adventures out of the house, but it absolutely leads to some interesting places. And it’s something to do while your niece goes on the Cygnus X-51 again.

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