I never learned to play the Pokémon TCG, and I regret nothing

When Pokémon cards first started taking the United States by storm, I was a new kid in a new school in an unfamiliar city. I didn’t know anyone, and because I’d started at my new school halfway through November, cliques had already been formed and there was little room for me to fit into any of the pre-existing friend groups. But I noticed something many of my classmates seemed to have in common, regardless of where they fell on the elementary school social hierarchy: All of them were lugging around a binder full of Pokémon cards.