Multi-Ball Blues, part 2

This is a much shorter section from my suite of pinball stories. It's pretty dark compared to what I usually write, but I also think it's really funny for some reason.

Vicious Cycle
When Eugene Brismark was seventeen years old he wanted nothing more than to own his very own Bally "Space Creatures Return!" pinball machine. In order to save up money for it, he stopped playing pinball in the arcade and he put in extra hours in the Circuit City stock room. A year later, two months after graduation, he finally bought one, which he refurbished himself.
It never occurred to him that if he had instead spent some of that hard-earned cash taking Jennifer Culpepper out on a few nice dates, she would have ended up marrying him and happily bearing his children. Instead he just drove her out behind the golf course after a few high school dances and tried to work up the nerve to touch her breasts, which she finally got sick of. Eugene ended up twice married, twice divorced and in possession of a vintage pinball cabinet that he could play for free whenever he wanted.
In his later years, the machine grew dusty and unloved for long stretches of time, but he always fancied it as a prized possession, never suspecting that it was the reason he would eventually die alone with no children or heirs. The pinball table was sold in an estate sale.