Take the old man's lesson.

You pause for a second not wanting to risk running into the group of guys. “Uhhh. Okay fine I’ll let you teach me,” you say wanting a minute before you have to return to avoiding guys on the way to the forest.

“Oh, goody.” The old man seems excited, “Let me just go get my things.” He slowly makes his way inside his house. It seems to take forever, you think about just running now. But it would’ve been rude to leave before and now it would be just downright offensive to leave after agreeing to the lesson. After nearly 5 minutes the old man finally comes back out of his house with a case in his hand.

“Okay, let’s see follow me over to the tall grass over here.” You watch as the man slowly makes his way to the tall grass on the other side of the yard. “So the first step is to find a wild pokemon to battle.” His voice much like his walk trails on slowly taking forever to finish. The man points to a bag on the ground. “Could you be a doll and hand me that bag.”

You bend over picking up the bag, you can hear the rattle of rocks. The man reaches into the bag tossing a rock into the grass. Nothing happens. The old man slowly reaches for another rock. This happens a few more times and wears down your patience. Finally a Weedle makes its way out of the grass. “Oh my aren’t you just a strong little fella.”

He opens up his case that he had fetched from inside. He grabs a pokeball releasing his own Weedle. “Now you have to weaken the wild pokemon so that you can capture it in a pokeball. Weedle use poison sting.” The old man’s lesson drags on and you start to regret humoring the old man. The two pokemon exchange poison stings slowly ticking away through the poison resistance they both possessed.

“Now you just throw an empty pokeball at the weakened pokemon.” You sigh relieved that the lesson is nearly over. The old man gently tosses the pokeball at the weakened wild pokemon. The ball drags the Weedle inside and starts to shake and rattle. Clunk, the old man has caught another Weedle. “And there you go, that’s how you catch a wild pokemon.” Before you can say anything to get out of there the old man cuts you off, “So now how would you like to pay for the lesson?”

You give the man a look. Pay? He expects you to pay for this pointless and drawn out lesson. “What do you mean pay? You just offered to teach me you didn’t say anything about paying.”

“Well, I was a top rated professor at the academy before I retired. New trainers seek me out for advice from time to time, I assumed you were one of them,” the old man slowly explains. “So my normal fee is 50,000 pokedollars, but I might be able to work out a … special deal just for you.” The way the old man says special deal makes your skin crawl and you know exactly what he means.

The thought of just running crosses your mind. You could surely outrun the old man and disappear into the forest. Almost as if the man could read your mind he says, “Or if you don’t want to pay, I’m sure the police would be interested in your unwillingness to pay after receiving such a generous lesson.” You don’t have 50,000 but you could maybe scrape enough together if you sold everything you have. As much as the thought of the old man’s special deal makes your skin crawl it might be the best option. Or you could take your chances with the authorities, surely they would understand that you never agreed to pay the old man.