The week Pokémon Go dropped I had the opportunity to overhear a conversation about the game at the grocery store. The cashier (who I will forever remember as “the joyless hag”) had a brief rant with the customer ahead of me. “I can see teenagers doing this,” she rasped in her two-pack-a-day voice, “but there’s grown adults out there looking for Pokémon. There’s a line!” I had been playing for several days by then, and I haven’t been a teenager since the early 1980s. I wish I could tell you I had a clever retort ready to fire off when I got up to the register, but I just paid for my chicken wings and Snapple, then caught a Zubat and a couple of Drowzees on my way back to my car.

Why would someone play Pokémon Go? For the same reason anyone would play ANY game: it’s fun. I just don’t understand some people’s apparent need to crap on someone else’s harmless good time. The game provides exercise, social interaction, and has helped law enforcement find at least a couple of dead bodies, which can reduce the number of scavenger birds hovering over your neighborhood. I put all of these in the plus column. Too old to hunt Pokémon? This is the same mentality that told me I was too old for comic books back in high school. Guess what? I own a metric crap ton of comics.

OK, my spleen is officially vented. Don’t forget to follow The Gerbil on social media. Like me on Facebook , follow me on Twitter, and check out what I’m doing on Tumblr.