gotta catch 'em all

I've been embracing my inner child lately.  And my inner nerd.  I was talking to some young internet friends about how silly their new game is.  I'm not sure what happened, but twenty minutes later, I had Pokémon Go installed on my phone.  

And after a full day of server and app crashing, I got sucked right in.  Yep, I'm a level 2 badass now.  

/Flex

This reminds me of the time RedBull did a promotional scavenger hunt.  I ended up with cases upon cases of disgusting beverages.  But I had fun tracking them down all over the city.  I even enlisted my friends and family to get more.  

So many posts about how to catch a Pokémon next door without looking creepy.  I felt like a criminal last night.  Slowly driving through dark parking lots.  Then reversing and cruising the next aisle to get closer to my virtual target.  I kept wondering how I would explain myself to a cop if I was spotted doing that and questioned.  This can go wrong in so many ways.  One teen already found a dead body while Pokémon hunting.

I suppose it's a great way to encourage kids to get exercise.  It probably doesn't work for me since I drove to all of mine.  In my defense, I had just exercised for 90 minutes.

I had a full night of shenanigans.  Exercise class, then pizza I don't love with fun friends,  then Apocalypse planning in the parking lot with aforementioned friends.  We also checked out the night sky, trying to see Jupiter behind the moon.  I ducked and covered when I saw 5 uniformed men walking our way.  They were firefighters, but my instincts were correct.  Stay away from the action.

After that, I rushed over to the grocery store before it closed.  It was amazing!  Lots of parking spaces.  Nice empty aisles.  No wait at the cashier, until I fucked up the whole chip and sign process.  Why is every machine different and tricksy?  I apologized to the woman behind me.  She was very relaxed and said she didn't mind.

As I was checking my phone (like you do) before driving home, I looked at my Pokémon app and noticed a swirly blue thing nearby.  I had no idea what it was, but I clicked it because why not.  I got stuff, I think.  And it was fun, with sparkles and sound effects.  I checked the map again and saw another blue thing across the street.  I weighed a quick drive-by against melting groceries and the migraine lurking in the back of my brain.  Swirly blue thing won.  And that's how addictions are created.

I hit three more swirly blue things on my drive home, and caught a few Pokémon.  There was another one so close to my house, but the melting groceries and the pounding migraine won that round.  Barely.