What december means to me

Its December. And that means one thing to me.

Neopets.

Yes peoples. For one month of the year I am a dedicated neopian. You just need to give me free shit for me to get there.

Now, before anybody says anything, I was into neopets when it was just a few months old. WAAAY before it hit cult status. And I LOVED it. Yep. I admit it. And I managed to get all of my high school mates addicted to it. Before school blocked the website because it was 'uneducational'. Yeah right. All that left for me to do during my 'study breaks' was have cybersex. Hello!! Catholic here! Like I needed any more 'education' on that! But thats a whole 'nother story...

And it was the same at uni. Got all of my mates addicted. We'd head up to the library every other night and play games and surf. A group of about 8 of us. Laughing and carrying on and trading shit. HEAPS of fun. But they blocked that too.

We were right into it. Making money by gambling, buying stuff cheap and selling it for a nice profit. We knew when the shops would restock and wait for it. We knew which plushies in which colour were the most valuable. And we walked the fine line between haggling the price down and getting what we want, or having someone just buy it out from under us.

There were different pets, different shapes and sizes. And believe it or not, different personalities. We'd make homes for them (and never decorate the bastards), buy them petpets, give them makeovers, and play with them. We'd teach them and train them. Just because we could. And we'd collect items to display in our shops. Just because we could.

One of the reasons we all played (or so we said) was that we weren't allowed to keep pets whilst living on campus. So these were a substitute.

We were aged between 18 and 20.

Nowdays I don't do any of that. I don't have the time. And I have real pets. But come December, its all changed. I have a years worth of new pets to get to know, new styles to paint my babies. And new petpets (and now I think there are petpetpets too, but I find them all too confusing). And I hit the games hard to enhance my 1 million neopoints. I collect interest and sell shit that has increased in value over the year. Its just like old times.