📖🔪😱
It happened on a Monday. Felt like only yesterday, but it was actually two days ago. I remember this because of the two CSRs scheduled on shift with me; my trainee for promotion, Daniel, and Annie... the newest addition to our little arcade family. Daniel was intelligent and softspoken, and Annie, was a little bit of an airhead, but easily made up for it by being a nice person. Given the fast paced environment we were surrounded by, it would almost be excusable if something went amiss occasionally... but on a slow day? Nothing should go wrong. You've guessed it, somehow it always does. Looking back now I wonder if I should have sucked it up and went to our restroom, y'know, the super secret one that customers aren't allowed to know about, instead of using the one all the way across the mall. In my defense, we were completely out of toilet paper. No big deal right? I was gone for 5 minutes... tops.
It always happens as soon as I step outside of the store. Almost as though delinquents can sense when the last stand in authority is no longer around to tell them to not hit that game, and "No running inside!" Do they take my staff for a couple of saps? I got back to the store as quickly as my legs would carry me, but it was already too late. As I entered the store, I saw Annie and Daniel standing in front of one of the claw games.
Nothing out of the ordinary, maybe they wanted to fill more plushes, or the claw could have jammed as it sometimes does, but that's when I stopped myself to realize that both of these were one-man jobs. It made no sense for both of them to be there, leaving no one to tend the register. I approached both CSRs, mouth agape, standing in front of an open claw game. I couldn't really tell if their mouths were open or not, given we're all still required to wear masks. It's just... How they both stood dumbfounded, that gave me a pretty clear picture of what was about to unfold. I asked them what happened and Annie replied that the claw was open. A double-take, I had only noticed now. Several animals were missing from the game, enough where it became obvious. Someone broke into the game.
This is where I was stood puzzled. The cashwrap/ prize counter is directly across the game, albiet, both on opposing ends of the store. Other than an oversized prize game somewhat obstructing the view, how did neither of them catch someone tampering with the game? Sure, there's that big game that stands between both sides, but that shouldn't matter. You see, the cabinet is made mostly of clear plexiglass, and you can clearly view who is playing the claw while standing at the register. I looked to Annie and asked her if she knew who was playing the game last, and she simply said a family. That's my clue. She could not give more of a description than that, but that she would recognize them when she saw them. This, I found wild. Maybe she was nonchalant, maybe I cared too much. Even with that being said, I managed to find this family first, with no description, and without seeing them play the game.
How?
All I needed to do was tie them to the scene of the crime the game that was open. I walked around the store, taking note of who exactly was carrying which prize. It easy to see if you pay attention, every game we have, has a completely different set of prizes inside, and none are duplicated for any of the other games. They were all unique items. I soon spotted a family, made mostly of adults, a little on the larger side, I would say about late-fourties. Two of the adults, both holding plushes from the claw game that was opened. I had already made it back to the counter, Annie standing in the usual spot front and center, and Daniel, nowhere to be found. Annie exclaimed that this was the family, after hearing an "it's them" from me. I breifly asked why she didn't approach them about this situation, and she began with a "well...", In all likelyhood, she just wanted to avoid confrontation. Before she could even explain herself, there I go, walking straight up to them as they were about to leave.
I let out an "Excuse me dear", the woman holding one of the animals immediately became apprehensive. "May I see your card?" I continue. She lets out a "I won these!" I look over and spot another woman in their group holding a huge Hello Kitty plushie from another claw game we had. Must've took a ton of plays to win that thing with how heavy the head is. I had to get straight to the point, or I'd soon have a customer complaint on my hands. "I'm not saying you took anything. I'm going to run your game card, and if it shows that you have played the game these plushes are from, you can go".
As I turned around to walk back to the counter, the woman who's card was now in my hands exclaimed, "the game opened!" That resonated, not in the good way either, but in more of hitting a little too close to home type of way. There have, in fact, been times where a game has been stolen from, because staff forgot to re-lock the game cabinet before walking away. Sure enough, going over the screen of play history I pulled up at the POS, there were more than enough games on that claw to account for both of the animals won by them. Thinking about it now, they could have gotten away with much more than two, if they wanted.
I quickly made my way over to the office, to review the tapes. Why is it that the cameras always catch everything, except for the exact angle that I need to see? If being an assistant manager has taught me anything, it's how to watch several cameras at once on 16x speed. It's catching the action! The moment I thought I caught something good, I slowed it all the back down to 1. The family were coming in and out of the edge of the frame. They were standing at the game, but suddenly, one the woman went over... to call Annie to the game? Huh? I was confused at three things. The first being how Annie completely forgot to tell me this part of the story, as well as how it should have been the very first thing mentioned... But lastly, why? Why would they flag down a worker if they were planning to rob a game? Makes no sense at all, something must have happened.
This investigation wasn't over yet. I'd have to report the incident to my general manager, Carl, who probably wouldn't like what I was gonna say very much. He was with Juan, our store lead, when I called. I was placed on speakerphone. After giving them both a quick run down on what happened I was met with the response I didn't want, but fully expected. You know that saying crime never sleeps? Well according to Carl, crime never wakes up early either. Then it began, how nothing ever goes wrong on their shifts, when there's always something happening on mine. But this time, instead of tossing the typical blame on the assistant who's just trying to make an honest living, he turns around and blames it on school kids and other deliquents being out and about during my shift. I mean, who in their right mind would rob an arcade first thing in the morning?
Next thing I knew, Juan gave me his alibi, before I even asked for one. "I opened it this morning but from the left side". Without missing a beat, Carl chimes in to defend him. "Maybe it was Daniel, Juan asked him to fill that game yesterday". Daniel had a long shift on Sunday, which not only meant that he worked with me, but them as well. So quick to nominate him as a patsy. Let me go back and clarify how opening the left side actually makes a difference in this case. We discovered recently, that certain types of claw games were made with security flaws that could be exploited. It wasn't easy to spot, if you didn't know what you were looking for. Instead of making unique parts for each side of a game, the existing parts were often just mirrored for the other side. Things like this save a ton in manufacturing costs. In rare instances however, the arcade machine can be directly affected by this mirroring.
I took a photo of one of these parts in question. This hook latches the left-hand side of the two sliding glass panels on this particular crane game. The hook is meant to latch over a locking bar. See how it bends outward? If you mirror this particular piece to close top to bottom on the right glass, it bends inward instead. Both of the locking bars are made at the same distance,including the gap where the hook rests after locking. This means that due to this piece being mirrored, there's not enough clearance to get the latch over the bar and securely lock the game. The latch could fit over the bar, swinging upward from underneath it, but without having gravity to help hold it all together, the lock could be shimmied in a way that the latch falls off the bar, which is how people have been breaking into these games. You spend gratuitous amounts of time looking at things when it's slow on the job. So how does all this hokey pokey corroborate Juan's story of opening the left door?
We forced the inward facing latch tightly over the bar on the right panel, which could only be done from the inside. OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) trying to save a quick buck, was starting to cost us a lot. If we were to open the right door from the outside, it would not be able to close again without a serious effort being made. With all staff who are allowed to fill games knowledgable of this flaw, it would be unreasonable to open the right side glass to fill the game at all, hence Juan's argument that it couldn't be him. It was obvious to open the game from the left, but it was the right side that was found wide open. Something wasn't right here.
After the call, I walked through the arcade, on full alert, to seek out Daniel. Sure enough, armed with all of the cleaning gear in the entire store for hyperbole like he was busting ghosts, Daniel emerged from one of the booth shooting games, spray bottle and rag in hand, duster in the other. Grasping an imaginary pistol with both hands, it was time I decided, for the interrogation to start. "Juan said he asked you to refill games yesterday". Before I could get any further, he let out an "it wasn't me". Daniel already planned his alibi long before I came up to ask him. He explained that he also opened the game from the left side, and that with the way the latch works, it would be impossible to have opened it from the right. He only needed to ask me a single thing to clear himself.
"How would you not notice it open, if you had to go there at the end of the shift to count the game?"
Once a week, on Sunday particularly, I'm assigned to count every last toy in every prize game. This is done around closing time. Even if Daniel were to open the right panel's glass during yesterday's shift, it would have still been open by the time I went to count the items in this game. Surely, I of all people would notice something like that. Both sides were still locked at the end of the previous day's shift. Daniel's reasoning allowed me to narrow down the possibilities further. The incident took place Monday, after the store opened, and it was not the staff who did it.
I finally found myself at an impasse. What did I miss? I walked over to the game, as my original assignment from Carl was to ensure that the locks were re-secured. To lock the right-side panel from the inside, I needed a step stool to get high up enough to reach over everything else in the game. I got the latch on and locking nuts as tight as I could. Then with the glass closed, I went to the front and tried to shimmy the lock open. No dice. Alright, I thought, but then I wanted to try one more thing. What if I tried opening it from the inside? The mirrored latch would never fit perfectly, and this is when I realized that no matter how tight the outside was locked, the inside would be loose. I called Daniel over to hold my phone so that I could replicate what actually happened that Monday, and catch it all on video of course!
HERE'S WHAT HAPPENED...
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
It wasn't a robbery at all. There was nothing to catch as the family who played, did just that, only played the game as intended. Watching from behind, across the room, you would never notice a thing as this all went down. The woman even tried to tell me that it opened. But who... would believe that a game could open itself from the inside? I can only imagine the terrors of sentient A.I. if even normal machines were capable of such things. As promised, the ending was unexpected. We didn't even know this could happen, and we work here. Fortunately for us, this mystery was solved, and we could go back to happily helping more customers until danger chose to strike our happy little arcade once again.
