"[story] Played PoGo with my niece last night"

#PokemonGO: My mom picked me up from airport last night, and my 4 year old niece and two younger nephews were in the car. We were putting my suitcases in the back of the car when my niece insisted that I sit next to her car seat in the back.We were sitting in traffic for a few minutes before the questions started:her: Do you like the Pokemon things that mommy gave you?me: Which Pokemon things?her: The stuffed ones.me: Yes, I loved them.her: Do you have any games on your cell phone?me: no. none.her: Do you still have Pokemon on your phone? I can help you win Pokemon!me: There is no winning at Pokemon Go. There is only the grind.::sigh:: I decided, that it was fine and opened up my cellphone to the app, which was already opened. I quickly went into the Pokemon collection and favorited my 2 Heracross and my 2 Corsola. I had, after all, just come from Florida and would have been devastated if there had been... an accident.After that, I went into the Pokedex. I told her that these were all of my Pokemon and their stories. She was amused for a few minutes, clicking into random Pokemon and asking me to read their stories. She asked me about the evolutions, and how they were related to each other. She asked if they were good, if they were my pets, if they were real, and why, exactly, does Nidoking look so mean?Then she accidentally exited the Pokedex and saw a gym. She asked me what that was. It was a gym currently owned by a different team. So I had to explain that I was on the blue team, that we have to play against the other teams. She was very curious to know who all of these other people were. I finally found a friendly gym, and pointed out to her that my 3125 CP Snorlax was at the bottom of the gym. In a "oh, look, there's me!" fashion.So then she asked to see me.After she saw my avatar, and questioned me about why Snorlax is bigger than my Larvitar - and if every player has a buddy - I offered to let her changed my style.casualty #1At the start of the night my avatar my avatar was a nice mix of blues, blacks and highlights of yellows. When she was done with me I looked like a Christmas catastrophe. She even changed my skin tone, hair, and eye color. She wanted to change my ears, but that's not even an option. Every time we opened up a new category I told her to please not choose anything that cost money. She almost wound up purchasing a red tank top anyways due to hand eye coordination issues. But who am I to complain when she was obviously delighted with everyone of her changes. Exclaiming, "Perfect!" after every choice.After my avatar's impromptu makeover, she wanted to know where all of the pokemon were. So I replied with:me- "Grandma's moving too fast for them to spawn right now."her - "GRANDMA SLOW DOWN. You're going too fast. We need to catch pokemon."grandma - "No. We're not slowing down for Pokemon. You're not teaching her Pokemon Go, are you?"lol too late.The car was stopped at a stop light and a pokemon spawned. I offered to let her catch it.It left me vaguely wishing that I had more than 20 pokeballs in my bag at the moment. She is a quick learner, but would need more practice balls than I had on hand. She saw me do a curve ball, and tried to emulate. She didn't do too bad, except not really understanding where to let go to make the ball actually go forward. Good-bye ultra-balls.After we caught the first pokemon I let her name it. She typed out 'xfjlkw' perfect. Then there was a weedle. While we were attempting to catch it, I asked her what we should name it:her - "Horn"me - "Horney?"NNNOOOoooo! That was a slip of the tongue! I realized it about one second after I said it. But, of course, she took it and ran with it. Even though the stupid weedle ran away, every pokemon I asked her if she wanted to rename the first suggestion was, "Horney!". Finally, I relented and renamed a Rhyhorn Homey. I told her it was "Horney", she's barely reading and didn't know the difference.During this time, an egg hatched and I asked her if she wanted to name the pokemon. I am now a proud owner of a Bulbasaur named Flower Pot.After a while we had gotten through a lot of my recents, and we were getting to things that I officially had names for. So I decided to change how it was sorted and chose by pokedex number.casualty #2 She wanted to rename a Party-chu, but accidentally hit the evolve button instead. Now I have another party Raichu.After that, I sorted by name - which brings all of my battle trash to the top of the list. We spent the rest of the time renaming things that I have no intention of keeping.Overall it could have been worse. There were no accidental transfers, no feeding of pokemon, nothing purchased, and only one accidental evolve. Mostly, it leaves me feeling grateful that I don't have kids so that I don't have to baby proof my account too often.tl;dr An evening with my niece gives me new found respect for those playing pokemon go with their children. via /r/pokemongo http://ift.tt/2qPuURJ