Guest of the Month: Tom from Pasadena, California

 

Have decided to begin a new feature: I have so many interesting guests who sometimes only stay one night, but some manage to leave a lasting memory. Tom, above, will be my first Guest of the Month: he stayed for 3 nights so had a little more time to impose his positive, and super friendly, chatty presence into the flat, actually breaking the ice with three young girls, American language students who I had had some difficulty in communicating with... sometimes very young people probably think I am too ancient to talk to...

Tom was born in the Philippines, but arrived in the United States as a teenager and now lives with his family in Pasadena.  It was never quite clear to me what his profession was, and when I asked him he just said that he was retired. At that point it seems clear to me that one does not press the point... but whatever it was that he had been engaged in, I am sure it was something worthy and useful. 

One of our many topics of conversation was  about child rearing- not that I am an expert of course- and he explained his relationship with his youngest son, who is 19 and spends all his spare time in front of the computer screen, which causes Tom some concern. However, he seems to be a budding internet mogul, since he is already selling and buying and making a profit. And what is he trading in? Pokemon cards. A concept that is really quite sketchy to me, but apparently there are huge amounts of people who collect these things, and they exchange hands for big money. 

Tom's son came to him and asked a question: someone wanted to sell a very special Pokemon card but did not specify a price. The son came up with an offer to buy for a certain sum, just to try, which was well below the market value, his offer was accepted. But at the same time, he felt worried about this: was it correct to buy the card for so little money? Tom put the  question  to me, and I replied, without hesitation, yes, that was fine. It was the seller's problem, not the buyers. The onus is on the seller to find out the going value for the thing he is trying to sell. Tom said that he had responded exactly with  that argument.  But it is evident that Tom has a really good relationship with his son, for even this sort of discussion to come up... his son obviously respects him, and he also has a keen moral compass instilled into him, which made his conscience question this transaction.