When I was little, I was obsessed with Pokémon. It was the height of Poké mania, a time in the early 2000s where the original 150 had taken over the world. Youngsters will never know what it’s like to eat a Jigglypuff Eggo waffle. I had every guidebook, food tie-in and I even saw the Pokémon Live show with the giant robotic Mewtwo . My mother was convinced that the Japanese were brainwashing me with these cute little monsters. To be fair, my mom also thought there was a mind control message in the Japanese part of the Hihi Puffy Amiyumi Teen Titans theme song.
My real passion was Pokémon cards. I can understand why my mother was a bit worried about this Japanese take over, I was spending tons of her money on Basic Set packs in the hopes of getting anything good. My world revolved around those shiny cards – I knew which ones were garbage and which ones were actual treasure, AKA Charizard. However, it wasn’t until this year I finally learned to play the card game. Collecting was always the most important thing: I don’t care how many Ponyta commons I had piling up in the corners of my room if I managed to get just one Blastoise or Venasaur. I totally deserve to be on an episode of Hoarders.
One day, my dad came home with a problem. He was a judge who often had to deal with the most ridiculous cases. A man once sued another guy over a stamp, spending hundreds of dollars in court fees just to get 35 cents back. Another time, my dad literally had to sit over the Monty Python Dead Parrot sketch .
This time, a father was suing Toys R Us because his kid had his Pokémon cards stolen there. The kid had left them on the ground and someone must have grabbed them. My dad knew nothing about Pokémon cards, so he turned to his ten-year-old spawn for some guidance.
On the day of the trial, my dad sat me in his chambers with my Prima Official Pokémon Pricing guide and asked me to tally up what this kid’s collection was worth. Being a ten year old, my dad didn’t ask me a lot for help in the legal field, so I took this as my opportunity to shine. I was going to blow this case right open. I’d be like Nancy Drew but under much nerdier circumstances.
I spent hours totaling up the exact value of this kid’s Pokémon card collection from a list his father had given the courts. I pecked at that calculator for hours, slowly adding up the highly inflated prices in the glossy indexes of the Prima magazine. The kid had no first editions, no misprints and no Charizard, this kid’s holy grail collection barely broke fifty bucks.
The kid’s dad was pissed, he thought his son’s collection was worth a fortune. After that, the case slowly crumbled and eventually the dad lost. This was the only time my dad ever let me help him work on a case. Once Poké Mania died down, there was a lot let less need for a Pokémon expert in the courts.
My father passed away three years ago and I’ll never forget how supportive he was of my weird hobbies. For one day, I was an actual Pokémon expert and for that I will always be grateful.
