Warning: Your children are quitting school to join underground animal fight clubs

It’s one in the afternoon — do you know where your children are? Probably hanging out in bat-filled mountain tunnels and associating with crime syndicates, according to a recent investigation.

They call it Pocket Monsters, or “Pokemon” in gang lingo. All across the world, children, usually around the ages of ten to twelve, are dropping out of school to hunt, capture, and fight wild animals for money and respect. The “Monsters” the title refers to are such run-of-the-mill creatures as mice, cows, rabbits, cats, dogs, and snakes, just to name a few.* That’s right: our children are joining animal fight clubs.

And the bloodsport goes even deeper than that. According to one source, an entire Pokemon hierarchy exists consisting of “gym leaders” (think mafia capo), an “Elite Four” (mob bosses), and a Pokemon “champion” (boss of all bosses) at the very top, all hidden from the public eye. It is not yet verified if the Pokemon champion routinely orders innocents to be slaughtered as a warning to potential challengers. But probably.

Even more unsettling are the reports of kids being harassed by, fighting, and even joining an underground crime organization called Team Rocket. This debauched syndicate takes part in activities that would rock the sensibilities of any normal citizen, activities which include:

140 reported incidents of challenging children to animal fights
140 reports of losing to said children
140 reports of paying winning children money and divulging their secret plans to them without provocation
2 reports of their entire infrastructure collapsing from the slightest interference of lone ten-year-olds, possibly the same ones to whom they divulged their secret plans

Obviously, if your child gets mixed up with Team Rocket he or she is as good as dead.

So what is there to do, besides do nothing and hope the problem solves itself? While the situation may seem hopeless, there are a number of actions you can take to ensure the safety of your child:

If you are a mother, it’s important that you do not give your kids permission to quit school and take up Pokemon. Numerous studies show that the main cause of children joining the Pokemon craze is the mother saying it’s alright, that “every child leaves home some day.” Despite what you may have heard, children don’t customarily leave home during their preteen years.
Likewise, if you are a father, make sure you’re not a deadbeat father. According to Dr. Lola Grisham, head of the Celadon City Pediatric Institute, “Children who capture animals and force them to fight all tend to lack one thing: a compassionate male role model. The dads of the majority of these kids all seem to have run out on the families long ago, leaving the children to turn to violence and animal cruelty as a distraction from their own incessant loneliness.” Don’t be an asshole, basically.
Make sure not to leave the television turned to a movie featuring such subjects as two kids walking down railroad tracks, two kids searching for treasure in a cave, or any instance whatsoever of two kids partaking in an adventurous activity. For some reason this acts as a cue for children to quit school and take up Pokemon.
Be careful if you and your child live in a quiet, inconsequential rustic town, especially if that town’s motto is something like “Fresh and Free” or “Winds of a New Beginning.” As with the movie material, children inexplicably take “Fresh and Free” to mean “You should run away from home and make some animals fight each other.”
Watch out for this man:
Artist's rendering property of Saffron City Police Department

He calls himself “Professor Oak,” but his real name is Manuel Gonzales and he has been known to trick children into dropping out of school to catch animals for him, presumably so he can skin them alive and sell their pelts for meth money. Also, despite being called “Professor,” he has never actually set foot in a college since dropping out of high school in 1972. In fact his mind is known to lack acuity to such a degree that he repeatedly forgets even his closest relatives, such as his grandson Gary, whom he has often been heard calling things like “Dickz” and “Cockwad” as if they were his actual names. “Oak” is known to drift from region to region, so if you see him, inform the proper authorities right away.

The Pokemon menace is daunting, but with your help it can be vanquished once and for all. Hopefully your child will soon be engaging in normal behavior like the rest of us: standing around completely still, occasionally taking a step in a random direction, and repeating forever and ever ad infinitum. Such is the cornerstone of a productive society.

* It has been reported that kids are also battling such oddities as mummies, robots, magnets, blue whales, coconut trees, scientific experiments gone horribly wrong, and sarcophagi, but these claims remain unverified.