Bangin' them pleasure machines

Earlier this week, I was on the Point Pleasant Beach boardwalk working on a story when a sudden shower drove me into an arcade.
Now, I've got nothing against video games....
Well, at the risk of sounding like a codger and a coot at the age of 48, I do have something against video games. They are too complicated these days with all that up/down x/y action to get the figure on the screen to do some lethal, Twyla Tharp move. Back when I was a kid it was one button to move, one button to shoot and one button to jump. I saved the universe more than once with three buttons.
But what's missing from many arcades these days are pinball machines. Now that's entertainment: extra balls, extra games, bumpers, flippers and all kinds of literal bells and whistles - a combination of luck and skill that can't be beat.
I wonder where they've gone and why.
But there were two pinball machines in this arcade, so I dumped a bunch of quarters in the Playboy pinball machine.
It was an old machine and it occurred to me that most of the women portrayed on the backdrop and playing field are probably grandmothers now, which was a little depressing.
But what was worse was the plunger used to put the silver ball in play was badly in need of whatever the pinball machine equivalent of Cialis is. It was disheartening and distracting to say the least. I didn't get a free game, a high score or even an extra ball.
Which, I suppose, is a metaphor for something.
But I don't want to think about it.