This piece of writing came about as I was cleaning out and sorting through the inboxes of all my 9 different email accounts, a job which I thought would take me a few hours at the most, but which has actually taken me my entire weekend. I got to my last inbox, deleting all the e-newsletters from Microsoft and Westfield and Nyan Cats Anonymous when I stumbled upon two very old, very very old, old old old emails. The story picks up from there.
My cursor hovered over two grey checkboxes. After each click, a tick appeared in each checkbox, before my cursor moved to a small button with a trash can on it.
Click.
"Are you sure?
Yes/No"
A momentary hesitation, a million thoughts about what could've and would've and might as well have been rushed past my eyes, before I firmly pressed down on the mouse button.
Click.
I was exposed to Neopets in primary school, and it toyed around in my life. Then I started high school, and in and out it crept and jumped, sometimes lunging itself at me, other times it would curl and rub softly around my legs until I noticed it. I have never done drugs, but I imagine this is what drugs would feel like; being addicted and wanting more from it one day, over a few days, a week or two, sometimes even a month. Then more pressing matters would press unto me, and press they would until I was completely absorbed into these pressing matters and Neopets would fade into the gentle abysses of my mind, just sitting there, conversing with my ex primary school crushes and my favourite Bratz Dolls, waiting for a small row boat called Reminiscence to row past it and notice it. Then it would start again.
I'd log on straight after school. Straight after school. As straight as you could get after donning a change of clothes, a cup of tea and settling down into the soft, cool leather couch that clung to your skin like memory foam. The bright yellow homepage would greet me,
Welcome, super_evil_faerie!*
* You can still find my profile on the website, along with that_hyper_kid. Yes, I've been told that my usernames just screams maturity.
Then I would open a separate tab with
The Daily Neopets on it and complete all the virtual tasks it had instructed me to do in order my maximise my Neopoints (virtual Neopet currency) for the day , as well as increasing my chances of winning the super-elusive rare paintbrushes that served no real purpose other that to "paint" my Neopet, thus giving them a new coat of colour, or pattern (A classic red Kacheek? How about a dark blue Kacheek with yellow stars?! Because having a Neopet that slightly resembled the night sky was real showcase of just how much I was to succeed in the real world).**
** I never got my hands on a rare paintbrush. Dam.
Cute but impractical. If I were a pirate I'd least put some pants on.
I knew I was addicted after logging in consecutively for a week, but there was nothing to reprimand me. I was still performing well in school, finishing homework and assignments on time, eating lunch with my friends, giving year 7s the massivest dirties I could conjure up on my tired face. If I'm doing so well, why should I stop?
My great realisation came in the shower (as they all do). Wait, what?! Neopets isn't real?! What do you mean after highschool I won't be able to work as a Kitchen Hand in my guild,
Food for Thought? That when I actually get a safety deposit box, my highly prized plushie of King Altador won't be sitting there? That I don't actually have 31 million dollars in the bank?
This hurt me.
All that I had virtually worked for.
All of my virtual toys I collected, virtual clothes, virtual glass jars with coloured sand in them, virutal trophies I won, virtual shops I ran, virtual money I diligently collected everyday, virtual friends I befriended, virtual forums on secret methods of diligently collecting more money everyday, were virtually useless in the real life.And from that day on, I promised I would never work so hard for something that wouldn't directly benefit myself.
And of course I benefited from Neopets. I felt immense amounts of joy in collecting interest from the bank and seeing the number of Neopoints rise in my account, from noticing someone had bought an item from my 1NP shop, from reading a book to my Kacheek to see its intelligence rise. And my favourite joy of Neopets, the avatars.***
*** You get avatars from completing pre-determined tasks on Neopets. These tasks range from easy to impossible, from no NP to millions of NP.
Everytime I gained a new avatar, I felt a voice in my head say,
I'm better than the rest of you.
What was it about this virtual picture that I could display to others that made me so happy? I don't know. Maybe it's because I really was better than everyone else, and I just needed someone to tell me. Maybe not. Most probably not.
My current avatar. Yup. Still better than everyone else.
I needed to move on. I have the HSC ahead of me, (or realisatically back when I played, year 9 yearly exams) which is a pressing matter which presses unto me like an iron press. As much as I enjoyed my time with Neopets, it's time to move on. Maybe I'll play again when I'm retired as ex-Prime Minister of Australia and living under the Harbour Bridge, but for now I have other hobbies that I'd like to work on. Such as making the perfect macaron, or juggling.
And so I logged into my email address associated with my Neopets account, and found the two emails with VITAL INFORMATION Do Not Lose This Email! that I was looking for. One holding my username super_evil_faerie and its password, the other that_hyper_kid and its password.
I checkboxed the two emails, clicked the trash can. And as the previous joy of Neopets came flooding back to me, like a very quick flood, not the traditional slow-rain-let's-evacuate-the-town flood, more of a tsunami-wave-coming!!!-flood, I chose Yes.
Then I started discovered Sorority Life on Facebook.
