worst pinball game ever

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was in an arcade with a few other people who were probably around my age or five or ten years younger. We were playing pinball. I was standing near the pinball machine, watching instead of playing. I may have been watching a tall, beautiful, black-haired woman playing.

We then had to go upstairs. We probably went into a movie theater, but I think we were there for some kind of business meeting. A movie may have played.

The meeting was over, but I was now by myself. I took an escalator down from the upper level to the ground floor, where the arcade was. A huge window wall to my left let in a lot of grey light.

I was back down in the arcade. I stood in front of a pinball machine. I may have been surprised by the fact that the pinball machine started up a game without my having put a quarter inside. Somewhere off to my right and behind me, my mom was talking with some other person, maybe about some kind of illness, maybe a mental illness, my mom thought I had.

I started playing. I couldn't figure how to launch the ball out of the side slot and into the game area. But the ball launched itself. The ball bounced around in the game area and then fell toward the hole at the bottom.

The hole wasn't very big, it was located near the side slot, instead of in the middle of the bottom of the game area, and the paddle had the ability to stretch across the hole entirely. But either I couldn't figure out how to use the paddle, or else I was way too slow to use the paddle, and the ball fell right into the hole.

I got another ball, which appeared in the side slot presently. The ball launched into the game area, and somehow I, without even knowing how -- or really whether! -- it happened, got an extra ball.

The ball that had gotten me an extra ball disappeared, and another ball appeared in the side slot. But it launched up the side slot only weakly, then falling back down toward the bottom of the side slot. It actually fell out of the machine altogether, through some hole like a coin-return hole, then tumbled through the floor. I may have picked up the fallen ball and somehow put it back into the machine.

In the meantime, the extra ball I had gained was already bouncing around in the game area. I saw it just as it was falling toward the hole. There was a little bumper near the hole. The ball bounced against the bumper. I thought this would save the ball, or at least give me points or something special. But it didn't. The ball fell down through the hole. I didn't even use my paddle to stop it.