As a child growing up in Alamo, harvest season signaled families throughout the area to pile into station wagons for the annual trek to the Allegan County Fair, where food, rides and attractions attacked our senses in delightful chaotic fashion. Over the course of the evening, our family would inevitably end up at The Mouse Game, a popular arcade game featuring a live mouse that would be dropped onto a horizontal spinning wheel outfitted with a multitude of numbered holes. As the (I’m sure, terrified) mouse ducked into hole #12, the winning player would then choose from a colorful collection of cheap stuffed animals hanging overhead.
But these mice weren’t the only animals put to work for our amusement. Across the way was another game, this one featuring live goldfish packaged in plastic baggies and given away as “prizes,” likely to be flushed down the toilet by parents two days later after finding Timmy’s prize sitting at the bottom of the bowl serving as a makeshift aquarium.
The Mouse Game has long passed, so as I sat on a bench this past weekend at the county fair with my niece, I was surprised to see a young boy walk by, clutching that familiar glowing orange baggie.
While the world today is recognizing the fact that animals don’t belong in traveling shows, it appears that we have overlooked the antiquated act of giving away live goldfish as prizes. It’s time for “Win a Goldfish” to join The Mouse Game as a childhood memory of yesteryear.
By Heidi McCrary, author of “Chasing North Star,” available on Amazon and wherever books are sold.