Trying Father

Apparently I'm doomed to deal with boys stalking my daughter much earlier than I had anticipated. Allow me to explain...

Kelly has been getting into the whole Pokemon Card trading thing, spending her hard-earned allowance on booster packs as fast as she can earn them. She's up to fifty or sixty cards now, and is trying to weasel freebie packs whenever she can. I always tell her to save her allowance. I have gone so far as to give her a dollar to help her buy two packs instead of one, when she had $6 saved up (one pack costs $3.49, so two comes to about $7). However, I found out Jean caved yesterday and bought her a pack.

When you buy a booster pack, there is always the danger of getting cards which you already own, duplicates. This is in fact part of the economic power of these games. Folks willingly buy pack after pack of boosters looking for that card they don't have yet. A side-effect of this is that you may have duplicates of cards somebody else wants. Now the trading starts. It turns out Kelly has been trading with kids at her school. The kids with the most cards are boys. Can you see where I'm heading here?

Jean went to pick up Kelly from afternoon daycare yesterday, on the last day of school. She was almost immediately approached by a boy who wanted to know if Kelly was going to summer daycare at Bridgeport, or if not, was she going to be in school there next year? He is apparently one of her trading partners, and is way too enthusiastic. He got his mom to give Jean his number, and Jean gave ours to her. Now here's the kicker: he's two years older than her! Miles (Miles!) is nine. Kelly is seven (almost). Double their ages, and my fourteen year-old daughter would be hanging out with an eighteen year-old boy! Unacceptable! Man the parapets! [Triple their ages and she's 21 and he's 27--Shhh! I'm trying to make a point here!]

Okay, I'm not really bothered by this, but I am surprised. What does a nine year-old boy see in a seven year-old girl? An easy mark for Pokemon Card trading? I guess I'll find out this summer when and if there is a play date...