How to Spot a Pinball Jinx
By Z Martin Brown
Pics by Slim Buckle
Jinxes are real. I'm not talking about the kind of “jinx” when you and your friend say the same thing at the same time. Get real. That shit is elementary recess crap. I'm talking about the type of jinx that causes every nucleotide fiber in your DNA to become luckless instantaneously. You think it can’t happen? I'm serious. Okay, tough guy. Count yourself lucky. You've never had an evil, long-lasting curse destroy everything you love. I, too, was once an oblivious, free-loving, arcade-going, non-believer... until I wasn't.
Oh HeY gUy I dOn’T bElIeVe In CuRsEs, WhAt ThE hElL aRe YoU tAlKiNg AbOuT?
First off, don’t talk like that. You sound like an idiot. Second, I'm talking about serious black magic, which threatens our absolute favorite pastime, PINBALL. So listen up, dingleberry.
Jinxes are spells cast on people to bring them bad luck. There are all kinds of jinxes around the globe, but I'm specifically talking about the arcade jinx. This particular type of jinx arises from high-score-hating bastards, whom I like to call Flipper Jinxers or just jinxers for short. These fucks are everywhere and come in all sizes, genders, and ages, making them extremely difficult to identify. I don't want any arcade-loving peers to fall victim to such horrors, so I'll break down the major types of arcade jinxes for you now. Hopefully, by the end of this rambling, you'll know how to prevent such travesties. You're welcome.
Identifying what kind of pinball jinx you’ve got
Jinxes aren’t all created equal. Here’s what you might find dwelling in the darker corners of any nefarious pinball spot. They range from not too bad to existentially terrible.
Wet Belch
Some jinxes are short-lasting, like a wet belch or a series of nervous hiccups. The transient jinx. Picture this: You are at your local arcade one evening, slamming steel and sipping on your favorite hooch. You are in the zone, rapidly approaching the high score on Medieval Madness, when you begin to fumble a series of heartbreaking misfortunes. Game over. No extra ball for you. WTF? You have no idea how you fucked up so badly, and for the rest of your night, you can't muster up a single multi-ball to save your life. You keep telling yourself it's the beer; you had too many or not enough. Six beers later, very drunk, you leave the arcade. On your way home, you stumble down a hill and pass out on a patch of scratchy grass. A dump truck wakes you before the sun rises. Confused and dehydrated, you drag your aching ass back to the same machine. Hey! Your skills seem to be back on track. You think, yeah, it was the booze. No, fuck-o, wake up! It was a transient jinx.
Recurring Jinxes
Other jinxes can stick around for weeks, like the flu. The seven-day jinx is a curse that starts off slow but then builds to an avalanche. First, your perfectly crisp bills aren't accepted by the coin machine. Next, the bartender hands you some quarters and you drop them on the floor. Half of them roll behind a pinball machine into some spiderweb-infested shit pit. Damnit! While on your knees, reaching for your change, you twist your wrist and scrape your flipper finger. For fuck's sake! You walk up to your favorite machine but can't seem to bounce pass, shake, or even drop catch a single ball. What the fuck is happening?
You drag your ass to another game, thinking the tilt must be off and the bumpers are worn too thin. But the same shit happens, again and again. You suck all night long. Frustrated, you leave unfulfilled.
The following day, you hump your sorry self back to the same spot, but your skills have somehow worsened overnight. This goes on for days. You feel defeated, start listening to the Cure, and cry yourself to sleep. It feels like your fingers are swelled up. You get fired from your job. You develop severe depression. You think it might be a good idea to call your father, whom you haven't spoken to in years, and he doesn’t realize you haven’t called. Ouch. The jinx strikes again.
The Eternal Jinx (worst kind)
The worst kind of jinx will fuse to your DNA and stick around your entire existence, only to be passed down to the next generation. The eternal jinx. I haven't experienced this one, but I know a guy who knows the jinxed girl. The story goes that this girl was a legend in Phoenix. She had the top scores on a couple dozen machines across the Valley. Then one day, she couldn't smash a skill shot if her life depended on it. Her aim seemed to have deteriorated overnight. No matter what she did, tilt, nudge, or slam, the damn ball would always drop in the fucking drain.
Paralyzed, all she could do was sit and watch from the sidelines and drink her face off as her top scores were shattered by no-named punks. What did she do next? She left the Valley and rented out a roach-infested flat in some shanty town to forget it all, hundreds of miles away from the nearest pinball machine. Pinball-less years pass while she's living on Hungry-Man TV dinners and reciting gospel about her new best friend, Jesus H. Christ. Then this sorry-ass meets her "soulmate" on a Christin dating app. Years go by, and they fuck each other stupidly until she pops out a son. And like any jerk parent, she tries to re-live her glory days through her offspring, but it turns out that her son sucks ass at pinball even worse than she does! She takes her son to a doctor, only to discover that her boy is born with severe carpal tunnel syndrome in both hands and binocular diplopia. She's jinxed, son. Eternally Jinxed.
What can be done so that this never happens to you? How do you fight against these dark, existential pinball forces? Well, you’ll have to sit with that dread for a minute, buddy. Why? Because Part II is coming next week. Until then try not to get jinxed.
