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My girlfriend wound up having to leave early, so I was entrusted with taking Awesomeface back home. Not long after, she got tired and cranky, so I picked her up and carried her screaming-and-crying butt to the exit. As we got to the door, I saw that the black light was broken.

You see, when you enter Chuck E. Cheese's, they stamp parents and children with the same number in ultraviolet ink, and when you leave, they check that everybody has the same number. Until I saw the broken black light, it hadn't occurred to me why they do this (my willingness to blindly submit to whatever security personnel ask me to do is what makes me such a favorite among TSA agents). And with the epiphany of why they checked the numbers came the slow, dawning horror of knowing what was about to happen.

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An FBI agent hides in Pasquale The Singing Chef just for this purpose.

The sweet woman in charge of preventing ball-pit kidnappings tried in vain to get the light to work before turning to Awesomeface Metalsplosion and asking, "Sweetie, is this your daddy?"

And with tears streaming down her face, she screamed at the top of her lungs, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

I was eventually able to get my girlfriend back down to the restaurant to confirm that I wasn't a kidnapper, and the Chuck E. Cheese's staff should be applauded for not instantly Tasering me and calling the cops. And while this was a totally understandable cause for concern on the part of Charles Ethelred Cheese's LLC, it was the first time I realized how darkly we tend to view lone men with children.