Neopets

Several years ago, someone online mentioned Neopets. Curious, I checked out the website.

It was sort of a "virtual pet" space: I made myself a Neopet and named her Spiffy1. The next day, I decided to adopt a poor Neopet that somebody had birthed, given the name "Bloana", and then abandoned. Although I made both of them female, for some reason I have always thought of them as male. Perhaps I created trans-gender pets, which would be rather funny since Xib, the person who first enticed me to Neopia, is trans-gender.

In Neopia, one may have all the neopets she wants, but these pets must be fed. Their status is listed on line whenever you go to visit them, ranging from "starving" to "bloated". Oh, and they can pick up nasty diseases, forcing you to spend thousands of neopoints (currency in Neopia) in order to heal them.

My pets have been educated in training schools at great expense to me. Yeah, I know. Somebody needs to get a life, right?

Neopoints can be earned playing the various games in Neopia. I'm not terribly skillful at games, so I usually stuck with Destruct-o-match, which netted me plenty of income to feed and educate my pets.

I lost interest in Neopets quite some time ago. I discovered blogs and message boards and Craigslist, and began to spend my online time in other ways and places. It became a grind to earn and gather food for my neopets, so I decided to give all my Neopian savings to a longtime Internet friend (the person who originally told me about Neopets) and flee Neopia, never to return. I had tons of treasures in my safety deposit box, and thousands of Neopoints in my Neopian savings account; I proceeded to give it all to my friend Xib, who was quite happy with this situation.

So I was left with nothing in Neopia but my two Neopets. All I had to do was put them up for adoption and leave.

I know this sounds stupid, but I just couldn't do it. I couldn't abandon my cyber pets.

These days, I go to Neopia once a month, collect 2,000 neopoints for redeeming my freebies, and put Spiffy and Bloana in a fleabag motel where they are fed and housed for twenty-eight days.

I have amassed another fortune in Neopian savings, and my safety deposit box is once again full of goodies.

Spiffy and Bloana are 2,263 days old, and it appears they'll live as long as I'm able to get online.