I wasn't expecting the day to be anything special, not considering that those two flat tyres the evening before had left us camping out for the night in the middle of nowhere.  Not that I minded that, but with the girls alternately chatting and squealing all night, I didn't exactly get a good night's rest.

What is their problem with bugs and spiders anyway?!

Anyway, so there we were camped out by the side of the road.  I'd already resigned myself to having to walk the rest of the way to the nearest town to get help, but the girls messed around forever before telling me that they simply couldn't cook a decent meal under those conditions.  By that point I was starving, and I'd had just about all I could take and simply grabbed whatever was there before heading off.

Don't get me wrong, the girls are really nice to have around usually - just not when we're caught away from a hotel room.  Thank goodness that's rarely happened, because they drive me up the wall when it does.

And today just happened to be one of those days.

Figures.

At least the walk was nice.  At first, anyway.  The girls were barely out of sight when I ran into another trainer - literally.  He took exception to this little point, and challenged me to a match.  He didn't look like much, but I accepted anyway: I've learned not to judge by appearances.  He wasn't anything spectacular, but he did surprise me with a few moves before I beat him.  He wasn't too happy about losing.  Who is, after all?  Not that I have personal experience in that area!

So off I went again - only to bump into the last trainer's big brother thirty minutes later.  When I stumbled across their even bigger brother an hour later, I figured it was just going to be one of those days.  I won all three matches, of course, but they didn't leave my pokemon in very good condition - and I'd left most of my potions back with the girls for some reason.

I knew the next town would have a Pokemon Centre, and it wouldn't be far away - but I really didn't want to have to fight another battle at that point.  I ended up taking a detour through the bushes to get past the biggest brother, only to walk right into Ash, of all people.

He was lost, of course.  That Misty girl was pretty annoyed at him, enough that she was starting to give me a headache even before I told her that I'd lead them to town if they paid for lunch.  They eventually agreed, even though it took some fast-talking to get out of having a match with Ash.  He had one with the biggest brother instead.  It was majorly frustrating to have to stand back and watch him battle a guy I'd been trying to avoid, although I gained some satisfaction in the fact he only just barely won, and his pokemon were in a lot better shape than mine.

Anyway.

We made it into town.  Eventually.  And I didn't even throttle Ash or Misty for their constant bickering, an act of extreme self-control, if I do say so myself.  I wondered how Brock could possibly stand it.  He seemed to be completely unflappable, even in the face of their never-ending childish arguments.  Then we reached the Pokemon Centre, and he totally lost it over Nurse Joy.

I think Ash is like a magnet  - he attracts anyone around who's nuts.  We even had a run-in with those idiots with the talking Meowth from Team Rocket, when they tried to steal pokemon from the Pokemon Centre.  Not that they were hard to handle or anything, but I never come across people as weird as that except when I'm with Ash.

Sometimes I wonder if life wouldn't be more interesting that way - but from observing Ash, that kind of 'interesting' turns too often into chaos for my liking.  I prefer to have some control over my life, as opposed to wandering through the woods for days on end with nothing decent to eat.  I don't know how he can live like that; but then, he's nuts too.

I made my excuses, left my pokemon with Nurse Joy to heal, and even skipped lunch just to get away from all that insanity that much sooner.  It took me forever to find a tow truck to collect the car and the girls, and when we finally made it out there, I almost wished we hadn't.  The brothers I'd encountered had worked out that the car was mine, and the results were not pretty.  I had to file a report with Officer Jenny about that, spending a couple of hours at the police station with the girls crying all the time, apologizing for not being able to stop them.  I rented a room for them at a hotel just to get them out of the way.  Between that and the repair costs, I was left flat broke.

I was also starving.

I tried to ring Grandpa, but the incident with Team Rocket earlier in the day had crashed all the phone lines, and they still hadn't fixed them.  So.  No money, and no place to stay since I couldn't afford anther hotel room.  I ended up back at the Pokemon Centre in a really bad mood, and was lectured by Ash of all people on leaving my pokemon behind even though I'd only been away a few hours.  Seeing Arcanine and the others healthy again helped a bit though, but it had still been a crappy day overall.  I didn't think I could stay in the same building as Ash without punching him at that point, so I started to leave.

I knew it could only be bad news when Nurse Joy called me back over to her.  Then I saw what she held in her hands, and had a hard time blinking the moisture back from my eyes.  She'd noticed it when looking at the records, she said, holding the cake with its lighted candles out to me.

"Happy Birthday, Gary!"

For the first time that day, I smiled.
 

- Dedicated to the nice lady in the video store who made my otherwise crappy birthday bearable.