Cuisinart Charrina and Carlos: Fruit Ninjas

It’s no secret I work at Costco. One of the many products they sell are food processors. The one that strikes a cord with me is the Ninja Professional.

Any time I walk pass the pallet of those boxes I’m reminded of a sibling trip to Paramount’s Great America [renamed to California’s Great America] I took with my sister, Charrina.

On our road trip to our final destination, we stopped at a Dave and Buster’s.

We had never been, so this was a golden opportunity to rock it.

We didn’t realize we would become a powerhouse team at the Fruit Ninja video game. By the end of the night we were … Cuisinart Charrina and Carlos: Fruit Ninjas!

Time To Slice And Dice

I remember we rolled into the city late at night. We were borderline #hangry so we quickly agreed to drive to the nearest place that would serve food and beer. The ginormous sign for Dave and Busters called our name.

If you’ve never been, it’s an adult version of Chuck E Cheese’s. You can eat, drink adult beverages, watch sports and play video games to your heart’s content.

One of the menu options was to “stay and play”. You ordered food, and a game card would be issued to you to play games while your food is being prepared. We received our game cards but briefly separated.

I walked around the gaming floor to survey the scene so I can adapt. I realized quickly that each machine issued tickets to be redeemed for prizes at a specified counter. I suddenly had a flashback to a scene in my past about 20 years ago.

I shuttered at the memory of being the Bayne of Easter, but you can read the hilarious post after this one by clicking here.

It was fairly standard gaming choices between stand up video games, games of chance, physical ball throwing (basketball, skeet ball) and featured games.

The featured game?

Fruit Ninja! There was a crowd gathered around a monitor screen about 70″ in length that was mounted at a tilt, and only about hip-high. I walked around it to see gamers pawing at the screen with their hands only.

Pieces of fruit flew in from all angles from off-screen. Their hand movements mimicked a sword slice. However, if you sliced a black old-fashioned bomb that meant it “killed” your character. You could only “die” 3 times.

I settled on this game to be my first and only game choice. Time to slice and dice!

Cuisinart Charrina and Carlos: Fruit Ninjas

I stood in line, like everyone else. Eventually it was my turn. I stepped up as Charrina located me. I smiled to greet her, gave her the nod, and we got to work!

We are a great team with a solid non-verbal communication base. The tickets were being issued out of the machine with rapid-fire pace.

Our success started to gather a crowd around us, which only fuels our competitiveness and desire to win.

Be the time we were done the pile of blue tickets was a gathered around our feet like paper snakes.

The ticket exchange counter didn’t count our tickets, they simply weighed in. I gifted Charrina all the winnings. I simply took pride in being Cuisinart Charrina and Carlos: Fruit Ninjas.

Deuces!

‘los