The theory: After you get a certain number of games, they basically become background noise. Your spouse knows you have a lot, but they lose track and even lose interest in how many. As long as you keep some semblance of order, they won't notice another machine sneaking into the lineup.

I added The Getaway to my basement lineup this afternoon. My wife knows I have this game, it has been in the garage for a week. So I'm not trying to get away with anything. I wasn't planning on putting it in the basement, but a few days ago I took measurements and realized it would fit. So I decided to add it and see how long it takes my wife to notice.

We will be having a New Year's party here, so she's bound to find out by the 31st. So I'm not give a poll choice greater than over two weeks. If it weren't for New Year's, I'd give the option of one month.

An idea of what it looked like before (old photo):

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How it looks now:

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The absence of money in the bank is more evident than the presence of pinball in the basement!

That's why we deal with cash!

She didn't even make it into the basement tonight, so I'll cut you 24 hour guessers some slack. BTW, here's a photo of the "background noise."

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She's been in the basement a couple times today and she just walked past it. No comments.

Almost got busted at a Christmas party this afternoon. Someone asked about the games and she turned to me and said, "How many do we have in the basement?" I hemmed and hawed and was about to fess up and she said, "We have room in the basement for eight but we don't have that many in there right now."

We have nine.

I don't know whether to call my pin experiment complete or not. She hasn't said anything about The Getaway being in the basement. This morning I was playing it and she stood there and watched for a little bit. She didn't say anything. So I don't know if she noticed it was an addition and doesn't care, or if she noticed the game but hasn't counted how many there are. I'll wait until New Year's to say anything and see if she has it figured out.

The answer is approximately two weeks. She was playing Getaway today so I asked her if she knew how many games were in the basement. Without thinking about it or having to count, she said nine. I asked when she noticed there were nine instead of eight and she said a day or two ago.