They Never Know How to Play

It is totally fun, but it’s actually NOT that easy!

I have been playing the Pokémon trading card game since 1999.  After over 20 years, it never fails, all the kids that are obsessed with the cards, never know how to play the actual game.  Most of the time, they play by lining up their cards, Pokémon only mind you, and use the attacks against the HP, no abilities, no energy, totally unfair to the player who goes second.

Today I sat in the park from 12:30 until 4:00 and taught 4 little boys all around age 8 (2nd grade) how to really play the game.  At least two had zero attention span.  The other one had actually played before but it began to rain so we had to go.  The other kid was enthusiastic but his dad kept whispering to him about leaving, weird.  He was also the most articulate so I lost a good opponent. 

Then there was the kid with blue hair who only wanted to know if my tin was a taser and I said “no kid, my taser is at home” and he seemed to be very impressed that I own a taser.  To set the record straight, I do, it’s not actually charged, it belonged to Shadow (prepper remember?) and it is currently locked away in my safe.

Now during all this, I have a bunch of little boys surrounding me amazed at my collection of decks and the battle academy set that I have.  I’m fielding questions, two of the 6 year olds want to know about my quartz Crystal points that I was using to hold down the cards (I need a total of 20 for this task if the entire board is full), I have other kids opening boxes and the one kid I initially wanted to play with could only talk about how he wanted to trade cards with me!

After that, a mom came up to me and thanked me, which I was confused by.  She said I have a ton of patience for all those hyper little boys.  I told her it was cool, I used to be a pre K TA and that Pokémon is one of my favorite hobbies.

I sure wish I could find some people to actually play with.  Besides reading and knitting in the park all afternoon, it can get kinda boring.  There is one nanny that’s there who is my age and actually has a son Dino’s age, she said she’d bring her fire deck next time she works.  We will have to wait until the baby goes to sleep (he naps in the park every day) so we can play.  I’m looking forward to it!

I have always felt that if you are going to collect Pokémon cards, then you should at least know how to play the game.  Not everyone opens hundreds of packs to trade.  I have never traded my cards.  I only play and collect, you know, when I can, prior to the pandemic before scalpers were fighting people at Target for them.

Anyway, that’s my rant/recap.

Play on!

🎴