Like Walter Raleigh or Ferdinand Magellan before me, I awoke today at the crack of noon to brave the wilds of my local Toys R Us store in search, not of wealth or some lame fountain of youth, but instead of an ultra rare digital creature: the Pokémon Manaphy.

Hit the jump for my harrowing tale, and every reason why I will never impregnate anyone (purposefully).

Nintendo has made a habit of exploiting Toys R Us' innate ability to suck children in with bright colors and foam giraffe mascots many times in the past, and today they did it yet again by offering up a legendary Pokémon for their Nintendo DS titles Pokémon Diamond and Pokémon Pearl. The Pokémon, unavailable until this morning, doesn't have near the imperialistic draw of conquering a new country or the mythical allure of an orchid that prevents cell degeneration, but to children the world over it may as well have been made of pure gold and blowjobs ... not that these kids would have much use for blowjobs, but I'm severely getting off on a tangent.

I arrived at the store moments before the event only to be greeted by TRU's crack staff of teenage hooligans intent on foiling my plans to photograph the event. Since I was still groggy and had no intentions of affronting their local customs, I allowed the peach-fuzzed youth to take my camera. Approaching the line that had formed -- the same sort of line these kids will be standing in for tickets to a Hillary Duff show a mere two years from now -- it occurred to me that these employees were taking their lives into their own hands. If not for the nylon barricades and Ritalin smoothies, these children could strip the flesh from their pudgy bones in mere seconds and I wanted nothing more than to be well away from that scene the moment the first child sounded a shrill cry of "I want my Pokémon! Death to the infidels! LALALALALALALALALALA!"

Thankfully, Nintendo had created Pokémon Diamond and Pearl with this in mind, so unlike past events wherein children would wait in line for hours only to electromagically hook their handhelds up to some sort of downloading station, one merely had to flip on their DS, hit the download button and watch the drama unfold.

So here I sit in a nearby coffee shop -- legendary Pokémon staring back at me with its dead eyes -- applauding Nintendo's efforts. There was no riot, no bloodshed, and while I'm sure at least one of those kids is going to vomit all over themselves in anticipation, I got out of there with both skin and bones intact.

I claim this Manaphy in the name of Queen Isabella!