Today, before we leave for our latest adventure, we're out in the front yard seeing if we can help Pikachu learn to control its compulsive need to destroy any and all of our possessions upon touching them. We're experimenting with the beach ball. Standing at the edge of our very full garden, it grabs the beach ball and stares at it curiously.
PIKACHU is looking at the BALL,a message at the top of the screen tells us, just in case we weren't able to tell that already.
"Throw it," Vicki says with particular emphasis on the word "throw."
Pikachu hesitates at first, but it complies. "Pikachu!" it chirps as it makes the throwing motion. Defying all the laws of physics, the ball flies backwards, crashing into about eight of our vegetables and causing those ones it hit to go flying into others. The catastrophe comes to its grand finale with at least six items, including the beach ball, dissolving into nothing.
Not even the phrase "God dammit, Pikachu" can give voice to the trauma of this event.