Pink, Day 27: Day-care.

Upon leaving Cerulean City, Brock informed me about some of his favorite pastimes.  Training rock Pokémon.  Throwing rocks.  Nurse Joy.  Officer Jenny.  (The mention of those names caused me to kick an Oddish that was minding its own business nearby.  Bloody Oddish.  Bloody Brock for mentioning their bloody names.  Bloody @#~/>!!)  Brock also liked not taking care of children.  (He explained his mother and father had left him to look after his many brothers and sisters who all were young compared to him.  Weird.)  And last of all, he loved breeding.  So much breeding.  This surprised me and I brought out my Machamp, ready to stop Brock if he got any crazy ideas.  Machamp would bloody break his neck on my command.

Brock ignored us and suggested we go to a day-care place nearby to show breeding happening in live action.  I was disgusted.  What the hell was wrong with this guy?!

--

Babies.  Eggs.  Pokémon.  Everywhere.

How I ended up at the day-care, I will never know but I was here and hating it already.

There was an old man at the counter, rocking a baby Bulbasaur in his arms.  He smiled when he saw me then grimaced when he saw Brock.  "Not you again.  I've told you, you can't watch them breed.  It's... wrong.  You are wrong."

"I am studying to become a Pokémon Breeder and I need to know just how they interact with each other.  It's for... studying." Claimed Brock.  He seemed very passionate about the subject and pressed the topic further.  "My Geodude and Onyx are ready to have a relationship.  Please, let me watch this love blossom."

I took a step back away from Brock.  He was bloody crazy.

The old man sighed and nodded to Brock, allowing him to do whatever he wanted, so long as Brock promised to leave within the hour.  After Brock had gone through to the back to the areas where the Pokémon resided, the old man walked around the counter and up to me.  He gave me the baby Bulbasaur to hold and explained he was glad I had shown up.  Respect.  It was back.  Ohhhh yeah, I was awesome again.

...

I had to feed the Bulbasaur some water.  THE BLOODY MAN WAS MAKING ME WORK!  Now usually in a situation like this, I would be filled with outrage but for some reason I was nice.  NICE!  Why was I nice?  I DON'T KNOW!

Eventually, the old man had me taking care of Pokémon left, right and center.  It was exasperating.  Horsea needed her tank cleaned and refilled here.  A Cubone needed a new bone as he had eaten his last one there.  A Jynx wanted her hair done.  A female Mr. Mime was having an identity crisis.  A Nidorino had a broken horn.  So many things needed doing that I wondered what the old man had been doing here.  This was less of a day-care and more of a Pokémon Center with a ton of patients but no Nurse Joy to help them.

After a while, Brock came back through with a look on his face that could only be described as horror-stricken (maybe seeing two rock Pokémon do it like those on the Pokémon Snap Discovery Channel (a channel where Professor Oak grades a trainer who takes photos of wild Pokémon for stuff) was too much for even "breeding-crazed" Brock to endure).

At sight of Brock, the old man shook his head and laughed while escorting the idiot out of the building.  I was nearly left behind and it took a moment for Brock to realise and help me out of my work.  With that, he grabbed my arm and bid the old man farewell while we hurried away.

I found myself waving back at the old man.  It scared me.  I was being nice.  People were being nice to me.  This wasn't right.  I mean I wasn't awful but I wasn't nice.  Nice.  Ggramnjansfngmjsmkfnjdsm bfndsjndsfnjsnvdaskdnvkldasd!

Hope to see you again soon.

Pink McJoy