Pokemon 101

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Pokemon really popular about 20 years ago, and then went away? When did it come back?

Ian gave me a whirlwind tour of the Pokemon characters on the way to school today. To be honest, I couldn't even write this post until I went digging in the mountain of toys and books in his room to find his book entitled "Meet the Pokemon". (That is, POH-kee-mohn, in case you're a newbie).

Ian's favorite character is somebody named Ash, because Ash has a cool orange jacket and only wears short sleeves.

"Doesn't he get cold?" I ask.

"No Mom, he doesn't. His Mom never makes him wear long sleeves." Fool!

So I, silly me, thought Ash was a Pokemon character, and Pikachu's best friend, but no, silly me, he's not. Ash Ketchum is a boy (though with that name, sounds like he should be running an ad agency) and he's a Pokemon Trainer. And sure enough, when I look in the index of the book and find him listed as "Ketchum, Ash" and flip to his page, there he is wearing those blasted short sleeves!

So, during my walk with Ian, I ask my usual array of questions whenever he starts talking about something completely foreign to me:

"Are Ash and Pikachu friends?"

"Sure."

"What do they do? Do they help each other?" I was hoping the answer to that question wasn't "No, Mom, they fight to the death with machine guns" and that I would be sorry about asking it.

"Sure, Mom, they help each other. They carry around their Poke Balls." (OK, I'm not even going to go there...)

"And then what?" I ask.

"That's it, Mom." I mean, really, what was I expecting?

"You know what, Mom?"

"Yes?"

"Ash is super cool!!" Ian says, as he does a fist pump almost like he's Rafael Nadal in a fifth set tiebreaker. I'm part proud and part disturbed.

So turning back to my (or, Ian's) Pokemon textbook, I notice that on Ash Ketchum's page, it also explains that they store information about characters in things called a Pokedex (really, I'm not kidding you). And then I turn the page and see that Ash's best friend is this hot-looking girl in a pink miniskirt named Dawn, from Twinleaf Town.

Is it too late to burn the book?