Among the many things I fail to understand, a new phenomenon has topped my list: Pokemon.

One hundred fifty-one monsters whose names and powers range from Wigglystuff, the soft and rubbery monster who inflates himself to scare off enemies, to Magmar, who bears a striking resemblance to Al Gore (yet another effective way to scare off enemies.) One hundred fifty-one monsters whom youngsters of all ages strive to imitate, capture and train (exactly what they’re trained to do, I’m still not sure.) One hundred fifty-one monsters whose sole, true purpose of existence can be summed up in one word: Merchandising.

For those of you who just crawled out from under the same rock I did, Pokemon isn’t exactly new. Debuting over a year ago in the United States, the Pokeman craze began in Japan as a Nintendo Game Boy video game (hey, I remember those) before developing into a card game as well as a television cartoon show. Recently, you might have actually seen a Pokemon at your doorstep, as the monsters proved popular costume choices for this year’s Halloween. It seems that, for some, the Pokemon craze is cute.

Wrong. “Cute” is a golden retriever greeting you with a wagging tail. “Cute” is a brother giving his baby sister the larger piece of candy. “Cute” is Harrison Ford.

Pokemon is not cute. Pokemon scares the hell out of me.

Now, the scary part isn’t that people will burn and pillage for the last Charizard Pokemon card. What scares me is that Pokemon is another sure sign that even in my last year as a teen-ager, I’m starting to feel.well, old.

I know, I know-19 is NOT old. I’m sure that every generation feels this way at some point or another. Fads come and go, trends change, styles reappear and eventually we all stretch back and reminisce about the good `ol days. But even the good `ol days are changing.

For me, it was Voltron at 6:30 in the morning as I got ready for school and Transformers at the break of dawn on the weekends. It was my brother and me begging my parents for a Nintendo and the Super Mario Brothers game so that we could finally put away PacMan and the Atari system. It was building ramps with random pieces of wood and then trying to clear 50 feet over the driveway on the brand new roller scooter. It was fierce yo-yo competitions at recess, listening to tapes of Debbie Gibson and Roxette, and believing that slap-on bracelets and mall bangs would never go out of style. Yes, I was an 80s child. So how does an 80s child, or any child for that matter, face life after the 90s?

What caused this most recent panic attack of age occurred this weekend as I ventured back into my youth-I went to see my high school’s musical. Granted, I had graduated only two years ago, so I wasn’t surprised to see the same faces of faculty members. What did surprise me, though, was seeing the fresh, young faces on stage singing in the chorus and playing in the orchestra pit. And all I could think about throughout the entire play was, “I used to do that.” And somehow, I started to feel old.

But, as a good friend later confirmed, I’m not old. In fact, she stated, I’m probably just as young and stupid as I’ll ever be-which was actually a strangely comforting thought. Just because a person moves beyond Voltron and slap-on bracelets doesn’t mean that he or she should worry about getting older. I realized that all I was actually worrying about was that I would forget those things that were, and still are, as important and special to me-no matter how silly or trivial-as Pokemon may be to today’s youth.

So to all Pokemon lovers: Godspeed. I’ll catch up to you once I’m done playing Nintendo.