Stealing Cars at Pleasurama
The year is 1991, and I am sitting in the manager’s office of Ramsgate’s old Pleasurama arcade, accused of trying to steal cars in the car park. My best friend, Russ, is sitting beside me: he’s accused, too. We have been in the office waiting for the police to arrive for about 20 minutes… but it feels like we’ve been there for hours.
We’re thirteen years old, and we’ve never so much as stolen a pen, let alone a car. Unfortunately, the staff at Pleasurama are absolutely convinced that we’re responsible for the attempted theft because they’ve seen us trying to get into at least three vehicles.
Only, they haven’t… because nobody canfind the woman who actually saw us trying to steal the cars. The staff are currently out looking for her, and while they’re running all around the building between the arcade machines, we’re trapped in the manager’s office.
We went to Pleasurama every Saturday morning, mostly going through a routine of Pacland, Golden Axe, Rolling Thunder, Operation Wolf and Wrestler War.