Nick, Pokemon Pusher

Last week was a most interesting week as far as Nick was concerned. When I picked him up from camp on Monday, he said that a fellow kid gave him twenty dollars because he liked him.

This immediately set off warning bells in my head. I stopped and asked him to explain what happened. The story then changed. He got twenty dollars from another camper by selling him twenty Pokemon cards. As I probed deeper into the story, Nick tells me that a kid came up to him and asked to buy twenty Pokemon cards for ten bucks. Nick then haggled it up to twenty. But he couldn't tell me who this kid was and the details of the actual arrangement were kind of sketchy. I asked where the money was. Nick said that he had put it on his account at the canteen. None of this sat well with me.

All night I was going over the transaction. Who sends their kid to day camp with $20? What kid pays $20 for Pokemon cards? Since Nick wasn't able to give me more detail, was there something else going on?

The next morning I had some questions for the staff. First, I did find out that Nick put twenty dollars on his canteen account. And I also learned that another parent was very upset since her kid squandered his weekly lunch money buying Pokemon cards from Nick. At first I was going to let Nick decide if he was going to keep the money. But once I found out that the other kid was only six, I made sure that he gave it back.

And it's good to know that my son was responsible for a note being sent to all of the parents, stating that the Boys and Girls Club is in no way responsible for money your child wastes unless you give the money to the camp canteen with instructions on how that money is to be used. A proud day.

Of course this happened the very day after Nick was presented with the God and Me badge for Cub Scouts at our church.