Absurdity
Man Tells Police He Needed To Know Where The Squirtle Was
By Jeff Garstein, . BSN Network. Satire.
A Washington state man was arrested last week after attaching a GPS tracking device to a package delivery driver's personal vehicle in order to monitor her route and intercept shipments of Pokémon trading cards before they reached other buyers in his area.
He did this on purpose. As an adult.
The man, whose name has been withheld pending formal charges, told investigators he had been experiencing what he described as "supply issues" with recent Pokémon card releases, which retail for between $4 and $180 depending on the set, and are available at Target, Walmart, GameStop, and approximately eight thousand other locations within driving distance of his home.
According to the police report, he purchased the GPS unit, which retailed for $39.99 on Amazon, affixed it to the rear undercarriage of the driver's vehicle without her knowledge, and spent the next three weeks receiving real-time location updates on his phone. He had configured the app to send him push notifications.
The driver noticed the device while washing her car on a Saturday afternoon. She described it to a 911 dispatcher as "a little black box that definitely should not be there." She was correct.
Detectives who reviewed the man's phone found a spreadsheet. He had been logging the driver's stops, estimated delivery windows, and what he called "card acquisition windows" in a color-coded Google Sheet with conditional formatting.
When asked to explain the spreadsheet, he said he was "just trying to be efficient."
Pokémon, for those who have been outside at any point in the last thirty years, is a franchise originally designed for children that now generates roughly $15 billion annually, largely because adults decided the cards were investments and then needed to act accordingly. A 1999 first-edition holographic Charizard recently sold at auction for $420,000. A mint-condition Blastoise went for $360,000. This context does not explain what this man did. It just helps you understand the mental environment in which he was doing it.
The Pokémon Company issued no statement, which is the correct response.
The delivery driver has not been publicly named, has not commented, and by all available reporting simply wanted to finish her shift. She is the only person in this story who comes out fine.
The man's attorney released a brief statement indicating his client "has a deep passion for collecting" and "looks forward to resolving this matter."
The GPS device is currently being held as evidence. The cards were never recovered.
He did not even get the cards.
The story we are making fun of: https://boingboing.net/2026/09/25/pokemon-card-collector-used-gps-device-to-track-delivery-woman.html