We head off to Springleaf Field. We're aiming to evolve some Gloom today. Not even thirty seconds into our search, we find one. It's a pretty big one, so there's a good chance it'll evolve. We ready ourselves to evolve it by taking out the watering can and dropping it on the ground in front of the character for easy access.
Little do we know, this small task will turn out to be the most irritating adventure we've had. Ever.
"Gloom!" Vicki chirps into the microphone. "Pikachu wants to talk to you" marks appear on the sides of the screen. "Gloom!" Vicki exclaims again, putting the cursor on the buried Pokémon.
Pikachu turns around. A lightbulb appears over its head and it starts running towards the Gloom. "Yes! Good Pikachu!" Vicki chirps. She turns to me. "Julie! It listened!"
I glance up just in time to see Pikachu blow right past the Gloom. "Um…Vicki?"
Vicki turns back to the screen. Her happy expression completely falls. Pikachu is holding up one of the many banes of our existences—a strawberry. Pikachu loves strawberries, as well as anything yellow. It likes to parade them around for-freaking-ever. "No! Noooooo!" Vicki screams into the microphone, but it's too late. With a happy squeak of "Pikachu!" it begins skipping around holding the strawberry, saying its name every two seconds.
"No! Pikachu! Gloom!" Vicki insists.
A message appears at the top of the screen: PIKACHU is focused on the STRAWBERRY. This message is the second bane of our existences.
"Gloom!"
PIKACHU is focused on the STRAWBERRY.
"GLOOM!"
PIKACHU is focused on the STRAWBERRY.
I snatch the microphone from her. "For heaven's sake, Pikachu! Gloom!"
PIKACHU is focused on the STRAWBERRY.
Having exhausted all of her patience with the yellow rat, Vicki is forced to resort to desperate measures. It's time for "The Tone." She grabs the microphone from me. "Gloom," she says in a sickeningly sweet voice.
Pikachu gets a lightbulb over its head. It nods a few thousand times and finally, finally, eats the god-forsaken strawberry. "Pikaaaa!" it squeals with weird stars in its eyes.
"Yes, yes, that's lovely," I tell the TV screen. "Now get the stupid Gloom."
"Gloom!" Vicki says into the microphone, still using "The Tone."
Pikachu turns around and gets another lightbulb over its head. It starts running for the Gloom. It stops beside it and bends down.
"Yes!" Vicki and I both shout.
Pikachu turns around. It is holding…another strawberry.
"Noooooooooo!" we yell angrily.
The same process as with the first strawberry takes place, although Pikachu fell asleep in the middle of it. We had to wake it up and go through the whole thing again to get it to eat this second strawberry. Finally, it does.
"Gloom!" Vicki exclaims, far past the point of caring what tone of voice she uses.
Pikachu runs off and grabs an apple. It proudly asks us what it is.
"Definitely not Gloom!" I tell it. It shakes its head at me with an expression as close to "you're an idiot" as N64 graphics could get. "Pardon me? Who's the idiot here?"
Vicki takes the microphone away before I can do any lasting damage to the system or myself. "Maybe the cursor's on the wrong thing," she suggests. She carefully moves to another side of the Gloom, giving it an extremely wide berth. Don't want our bipolar Pokémon friend to throw a fit if we step on the stupid plant. Said bipolar Pokémon stays where it is, not even five Pikachu-steps from the Gloom it still hasn't noticed.
"Pika!" Pikachu suddenly calls us. It jumps up and down to get our attention before it turns around and does that weird digging motion it does when it's getting out something, like that notepad it uses on picnics. It holds up a magnet. "Piiiiiikaaaa!" it exclaims, clearly proud of itself.
Pikachu's too close to the Gloom to go near it. We wait for it to shut up and come give us the stupid magnet so we can all get on with our lives. It doesn't. It just keeps calling and calling. "Piiiiiikaaaa! … Piiiiiikaaaa! … Piiiiiikaaaa!"
"Over here," Vicki calls at least six times. It doesn't work. There's no choice but to go near Gloom.
Basically, we're forced to risk our objective for this entire trip to get Pikachu's stupid magnet. "God dammit, Pikachu!" I curse at it as Vicki slowly edges closer to Pikachu and therefore to Gloom. Thankfully, it's just far enough away that we don't disturb it. Pikachu happily hands us the magnet and nods self-righteously another few thousand times. Apparently it thinks that forcing us to come to it was the right thing to do. I don't know what kind of intelligence the game creators intended to give it, but clearly something went wrong.
At that point, we hear the most awful sound you can hear in that game when you have an unfinished task you really want done: a weird birdcall. A message from Professor Oak pops up on the screen saying that it is almost evening and therefore it will be time to go home soon.
"You wasted our morning!" I yell at the TV screen. "God dammit, Pikachu!"
"We still have time!" Vicki reminds me. She hurriedly yells into the microphone, "Gloom!" and points at the accursed plant.
Pikachu turns.
Pikachu sniffs the air.
And Pikachu runs up to the suspicious Gloom-plant, shaking it and declaring it to be a real Gloom.
Vicki and I are, understandably, very excited. "Gloooooooooooom!" we literally scream triumphantly, which is a very normal reaction coming from us. Vicki makes the character hand the watering can to Pikachu. Pikachu waddles over and awkwardly stabs the spout of the can into Gloom's side to water it. It's the moment of truth. Would our extraordinary efforts to get Pikachu to this Gloom be in vain?
They are not! The Gloom rises up with a "Gloom gloom!" and evolves by glowing yellow-orange, shrinking itself, and then expanding into a truly massive flower-thing. "Pika pika chu!" Pikachu trills, jumping up and down.
"Let's find another fast before Professor Oak comes to get us!" I tell Vicki, gesturing for her to run off into the wilderness.
"Okay!" Vicki declares. But wait. Pikachu hasn't handed back the sacred watering can yet. It takes an extremely long time for Pikachu to explain to us that it can be used to water forty-nine more times and hand us back the stupid can with another series of satisfied nods. "Go, go!" I cheer. The character takes a step forward.
Professor Oak's picture pops up. Did you have a good trip? the accompanying message asks us.
Day 70-something is over. Pikachu has wasted our whole trip with one…single…Gloom.
"GOD DAMMIT, PIKACHU!" I yell at the screen and very maturely throw a handful of popcorn at it.