If you don’t collect Pokémon cards, you might not be aware of the craze surrounding them. They’ve become hard to get, prices are soaring, and scalpers are buying out the stock to relist for crazy prices online. Some stores are even raising the prices and succeeding in selling, due to how hard some sets are becoming to get. I work, so I can’t be at the stores right when the cards are put out and miss out on a lot.

My mother is a seventy-four-year-old disabled Veteran and every time she’s at a retail store, she checks for Pokémon cards, and sometimes scores for me.

There are two sets that I have been absolutely unable to find. Black Bolt and White Flare. Unfortunately, these two sets correspond to one of my favorite games in the series, and I’ve been a bit down that I cannot get my hands on a single pack.

Well, one day my mom’s out shopping for regular groceries and happens to check the Pokémon card aisle, and lo and behold, there are Black Bolt and White Flare booster bundles. Now, my mom’s not a crazy scalper, so she selects 2 of each for me and leaves the rest for others.

She’s going about her regular shop when a man reaches into her cart and tries to take the booster bundles.

My Mom: “Don’t take those, they’re for my daughter.”

Man: “Yeah, I want ’em for my kid.”

My Mom: “There were more on the shelves. You can get some of your own if you head over now.”

Man: “They’ll be gone.” *Reaches for boxes again.*

My Mom: “NO! Go get your own.”

My mom attempts to maneuver the cart away from this man, but he follows her, a short 5’4″ (162 cm for my non-American friends) grey-haired old lady with a cane in her cart.

My Mom: “Please go away!”

Man: “Just stop.” *Grabs her cart and forcefully stops her.* “You can go get more if they’re really there.” *Takes booster bundles.*

My mom tried to stop him, but he pushed her away, and she had to grab on to the cart to maintain her balance. She has two bad knees and a bad back from the military, and she could have easily fallen and hurt herself seriously. So, the man took the cards and speedwalked away.

My mom told the first associate she saw, but the man was long gone, and sadly, so were the rest of the cards. When my mom told me the story, I told her to just let the miserable SOBs have whatever and keep herself safe. She’s worth too much to me to get hurt over my collection. 

Fortunately, my friend Adrien happened to be visiting his grandparents in Japan when I complained in the friend group chat about this, and he told me he’d get me a couple of boxes of Black Bolt and White Flare Japanese cards. My mom wired him some extra cash and told him to go wild picking out stuff for me, so I ended up with 3 Japanese Booster Boxes of each Black Bolt and White Flare, along with several other boxes from different sets.

But to that crazy man in the store, I seriously doubt you even had a kid, and I bet you just saw my mom as weak and easy to take advantage of. They’re just fancy cardboard, not worth sacrificing our human decency over. I hope the next old lady you decide to pick on has a background in Krav Maga and a spirit to match.

My mom’s okay, but she’s a lot more cautious and brings a coat into stores with her now to hide her finds under. It’s really sad that the hobby has come to the point where an old lady has to hide presents for her daughter from grown men.

I graduated college, moved out of my apartment, and a friend of mine moved in to begin the next year’s lease. We met when I was a sophomore, and she was a freshman, so I had known her for a few years by this point. We agreed via text that she would get all the utilities switched to her name in the first month to avoid any confusion. That month went by, and I started getting utility bills sent to my forwarding address. I sent her a reminder text.

Me: “Hey, don’t forget to change the utilities to your name.”

Friend: “I haven’t seen any bills, though.”

Me: “Because they’re all in my name and the postal service is forwarding them. You need to change them to your name.”

Friend: “Oh, okay. Yeah, I will.”

Me: “Thank you.”

Friend: “Or you can, that’s fine too.”

Me: “I can’t switch bills to someone else’s name; it has to be the person who is taking over payment. Otherwise, anyone could say someone else is paying their bills.”

Friend: “Oh, okay.”

I sent her pictures of each bill and listed out how to pay each one online. I saw on Facebook that she was going out to bars, concerts, and amusement parks, so I figured she was just busy.

Another month went by, and I got another round of bills, this time with PAST DUE in large print.

Me: “Change the utilities to your name today, please.”

Friend: “I’ll do it, I’m job hunting.”

Me: “Job hunting?”

Friend: “Yeah, I got fired. I’ll change them when I get a new job.”

Me: “You are getting past due notices. You need to pay them, or this will go to collections and my credit will take the hit.”

Friend: “Okay, I will.”

I sent updated pictures of the bills and reminded her how to pay them. No word about getting things changed over, but she was still posting about going out and having a great life.

ANOTHER month went by, and I was getting shut off notices for lack of payment. I tried reaching out to each company to explain that I was not the resident anymore, but they said there was nothing they could do until the current resident reaches out and changes the name. So, I texted her again.

Me: “Change the utilities today or everything is getting shut off.”

I sent the new bills and reminded her how to pay them online.

Friend: “I dropped out of school, I’m too depressed about getting fired. Do you think you can cover them, and I can pay you back?”

Me: “You need to pay these yourself.”

I sent everything AGAIN, though I didn’t have much hope at this point. More posts about partying, a brand-new car, and concerts. Sure enough, a few weeks later, [Friend] called me.

Friend: “They shut off my power!”

Me: “Because you didn’t pay your bills.”

Friend: “I don’t have a job! How am I supposed to pay?”

Me: “You’ve probably spent more on going out this last month alone than the total of your utilities. Get a job, get on a budget, get it together.”

I went online and found a dozen jobs that she could do – some even flexible enough to do from home – and sent them to her. She didn’t reply.

Eventually, everything was sent to collections, and [Friend] was still going out like money was nothing. Every time the collection agency called, I tried to explain what happened, but there was nothing they could do.

One Friday, I took off work and made the four-hour drive back to college to surprise [Friend]. She came home in the early afternoon, still dressed like she had been clubbing the night before, holding a half-empty bottle of expensive vodka in one hand.

Friend: “What are you doing here?”

Me: “We’re changing the utilities. Today.”

Friend: “But—”

Me: “No. I’m tired of collection agencies calling. You owe me for the past due bills so I can get them off my a**. I’m tired of waiting around for you to get this done.”

Friend: “Okay, but—”

Me: “—No. No buts. No d***ing around. We’re doing this today.”

We went inside and, using the hotspot on my phone and my computer, she switched the utilities to her name, paid the reactivation fees, and applied to several different jobs. I made her transfer the amount the collection agency wanted, then called them to pay it off before leaving.

On my way home, I had several people calling and texting me, asking what I had done to [Friend]. I pulled over to look at some screenshots from someone who knew both of us.

Friend: *Facebook post.* “This b**** [My Name] showed up at my house today demanding to pay all these bills in her name. I don’t have a job, I don’t have the money to pay, and she expects me to just magically do it? Karma is gonna get you [My Name]. Someday you’re going to be down on your luck and in need of a friend, but no one will want to help you, you f****** c***!”

I commented on the post with all the screenshots of our conversations, calling out her bull-s*** and reminding her of how patient I had been. She blocked me, but my other (true) friends continued to send me screenshots of her (several) rants about how I had ruined her life.

Each time someone commented in my favor, she deleted the post and made a new one. I heard that she tried to break the lease by abandoning the property, but the owner went after her for the full amount of the lease, and her parents had to bail her out.

Friend: “My doctor told me I should try taking some deactivated charcoal for my tummy issues.”

Me: “You mean activated charcoal.”

Friend: “No, deactivated. I don’t want to burn myself.”

Me: “Burn yourself? What do you mean?”

Friend: “Well, if it’s activated, it’s gonna be hot. Like on a barbecue.”

Me: “[Friend], do you think charcoal is activated when it’s on fire?”

Friend: “Yeah! You put fire on it, and it activates and cooks the meat!”

Me: “Activated charcoal is charcoal that’s already been heated, but like, really hot. It’s not the same as the kind you put under a barbecue. It’s like a pill or a capsule.”

Friend: “Oh, yeah, I saw the pills. They were expensive. I was just gonna go buy the barbecue charcoal.”

Me: “And what, chew on some rocks?”

Friend: “It was cheaper!”

I’m talking to a friend about his recent trip to The Science Museum in London.

Friend: “My nephew wanted to get a big poster of The Peruvian Man, but his mum said no because of the nudity.”

Me: “The what, man?”

Friend: “The Peruvian Man. You know, the naked bloke who does this.”

He does a t-shape pose.

Me: “Do you mean the Vitruvian Man?”

Friend: “Yeah, that one by Michelangelo or whatever.”

Me: “Leonardo da Vinci.”

Friend: “Yeah… one of the ninja turtles.”

My son is eleven, as is his best friend. We’re at a neighborhood block party, and I overhear them having a conversation over ice cream:

Son: “Can I ask you a question?”

Friend: “You just did.”

Son: “Can I ask you another one?”

Friend: “You just did that, too.”

Son: “Well, can I ask you two more?”

Friend: “No.”

Son: “Why not?”

Friend: “I just told you that you couldn’t ask two more, and that was the second one! Don’t you listen?”

Son: “What?”

Friend: “And there’s question number three! What’s wrong with you? No means NO!”

Son: “Never mind.”

Friend: “See? You should have started with that and saved us both a lot of time.”

I love that my weirdo son found his weirdo bestie.