KNOW Your Owner!

The Moehog grins to himself as he enters the office, being careful not to crunch any papers lying on the floor with his hooves. He takes a pen from one of the disordered piles between his teeth and rummages through half-written on sheaves of paper before he finally finds four blank pages. With a mischievous chuckle, he settles down on the floor and writes the following:

I’ve traveled through a bunch of places in Neopia – I mean, a bunch of places! (I have one of those uberly eccentric owners who likes to drag her pets off on boring trips so she can ‘pursue knowledge.’) Because of my owner’s weirdness, I’ve had the opportunity to find out how real owners treat their pets, and, to my surprise (not!), I’ve found out not all owners treat their pets like they should. Oh, yeah, sure, there are some awesome ones – they buy their pets gifts, celebrate their birthdays, and treat them as virtual kings and queens! But then there are others – not as bad as my owner (but almost) – who are just terrible to us!! They’re so wrapped up in everything they need to do they can barely remember to feed us, let alone celebrate our birthdays or remember to buy us presents! What cruel twist of fate can own up to this terrible misdeed?! WHY am I doomed to deal with an owner like RW, who. . .

Okay . . . end rant. Anyways, I have come up with a way to identify which owners are bad and which owners are good (using my owner as a prime example of what an owner should not be). All you have to do, my fellow downtrodden pets, is to read the scenario described and choose the answer that most suits your owner. Hopefully, you don’t have an owner who engages in stupid activities (like writing, for instance) or who is a totally spaced-out, absent-minded nitwit (*cough* RW *cough*), but we’ll see, okay? And don’t worry – if you do, I have some very deep, far-reaching advice for you at the end of the test. (Oh yeah – for those of us who have a lower IQ than others – remember to write down which answer you chose.)

1. Let’s start with dinner time, assuming your owner actually remembers to feed you, of course. You’re ravenously hungry after doing what all Neopets do best – lounging around the house and playing with their Clockwork Asparaguses all day. Running wildly to the dinner table, you find that your owner has:

1. Spent hours preparing a gourmet meal, complete with rarity 99 items for your awesome worshipfulness.

2. Has laid out either very inexpensive or dirt cheap (as in, one Neopoint stuff) food in a modest but relatively tasty meal.

3. You don’t even get a meal!! When you run to the table, anticipating a loaf of bread cooked with a cup of love, you find your owner has prepared not a meal, but a suitcase. You’re off to the Neolodge, my friend, where your owner gets to save big points and you get nothing.

2. Amongst owners who never celebrate birthdays, this one can be a real problem. Let’s say you’re in a clothing store, picking out school clothes (even the stingiest of owners have to get you school clothes!). You shoot directly for your favorite section – whatever is cool to you – and your owner:

1. Follows you to that section and listens to your suggestions. Your owners gladly buys you exactly what you want and even tosses in a few cool key chains for your collection!

2. Your owner follows you to the section you like, listens to your suggestions, but then drags you off to one of those nasty cheap stores to find something less expensive. Grrrr . . . when will owners realize it’s not that you’re dressed nicely that matters, it’s how much you spend?! Don’t they remember what it was like to be pets??

. . . never mind

3. You never even get to your section! Instead, your owner scoops you up and coddles you in his/her arms and carries you around the store to HIS/HER favorite section. Can you guess which section that is? Oh, yes, my poor, fellow Neopet, you have been doomed to endure the agony of the baby section! No stylish clothes for you, just baby blues and cutesy pinks. Ugh!

3. For the sake of argument, let’s suggest that your owner has bought you a present. I know that, though this may come as a shock to some, a few blessed owners actually do shower heavenly gifts upon their pets from time to time. Imagine the present your owner would give you. Visualize it in your mind until you can almost reach out and touch it. That’s it . . . good . . . okay. What is the present?

1. A Dark Battle Duck.

2. A Rubber Ducky (well . . . at least it kinda looks like a Dark Battle Duck . . .).

3. A Toy Sailboat. Not a Super Toy Sailboat, just a Toy Sailboat. Just a Toy Sailboat.

4. Most owners like to go on vacation every once in awhile. Some prefer nature, but others prefer urban places. Whichever your owner prefers, the final decision is usually chosen as a family. During this important decision making process, your owner:

1. Sits down with you to decide where to go. He/she pulls out maps and lays them before you with all sorts of brochures and details about each place to stay. After a time of going back and forth with different ideas and suggestions, you and your owner emerge, having just created the perfect vacation.

2. Stubbornly insists on the cheaper places to go and stay. Your vacation ends up not being all that spectacular, but it still looks like a decently pleasant holiday.

3. Your owner doesn’t even bother including you in the planning process. In fact, you don’t even get to go! Nope, your owner decides to tramp off and go observe some dumb wild Sauropods in the jungles of Tyrannia all by her lonesome! (Not that you would ever want to go watch some boring lizards!) In fact, your owner leaves in such a hurry, she forgets to leave you keys to the house and you end up locked outside for a week!

. . . uhh . . . you just don’t get to go, okay? None of that really happened to me . . . really. (*hint* articles, issue 136)

5. Your owner has had a rough day. Everything seems to have gone wrong, and now he/she is sitting on the couch trying to sort things out. You, being the wonderful, awesome pet that you are, go over to him/her and try to cheer him/her up. Hopping on the couch and curling up next to your owner, your owner responds by:

1. Discussing the problem with you. You two try to work it out, and whether or not you’re able to come up with a solution, you both feel a lot better after talking.

2. Hugging you and shrugging off the problem when you ask about it. This, apparently, isn’t something pets should have to worry about.

3. Stares off into space, thinking about his/her problem. When you nudge them, they absent-mindedly begin scratching your head, but because his/her brains are somewhere other than the present, he/she scratches harder than normal and doesn’t stop. In other words, your owner attempts to bore a hole in your head via scratching.

6. Every Neopian unit has family activities, right? Right. Okay, so, you’ve just gotten home from Neoschool, and before you can so much as dump your backpack beside the door, your owner:

1. Greets you happily and asks you how you would like to go pick out a brand new petpet.

2. Pulls board games from the closet and gathers your siblings (if you have any) for ‘family game night’.

3. Runs up to you in a near panic and gets down in his/her knees, begging you to help with several tasks he/she has been procrastinating that have to be done by tomorrow – “or else.” (Let’s just say not all of RW’s your owner’s contacts are reputable.)

7. You and your owner are outside enjoying the great outdoors and playing games (I can’t think of any owner who doesn’t like games – even the stingy ones like them because they give out Neopoints!). How much attention does your owner pay to you? Does your owner:

1. Tend to your every whim, going everywhere you please, and buy you snacks along the way?

2. Make you play the more high-yield games despite the fact your favorite game happens to be a low-yield game?

3. Completely forgets about you and starts conducting interviews with other pets for an article about the adverse effects of Destruct-O-Match?

8. Suppose you and your owner are crossing on a ferry from Terror Mountain to Mystery Island. I know that’s a long ways for a ferry, but just suppose, okay? You’re enjoying yourself along the edges of the ferry when suddenly you slip and fall in the water. Splashing around in terror (assuming you’re not a water pet, of course) and screaming for help, your owner:

1. Dives to your rescue. (Hopefully your owner can swim, eh? I know they say that “it’s the thought that counts,” but not in this case!)

2. Immediately gets help. The ferry is stopped, and everyone onboard gets to witness your rescue as some valiant person scoops you out of the water and delivers you to your owner’s arms.

3. Sorry, pal. Your owner doesn’t even realize you’ve fallen over. Rather, he/she is staring out at the endless sea, writing poetry about eternity (Hey! That rhymes!). It’s some other brave person who gets your owners attention and then rescues you.

9. After you’re nearly left behind out in the ocean and your owner is holding you on the ferry, the first thing you owner says to you is:

1. “Thank Adam you’re alright! I don’t know what I would have done if anything had happened to you!”

2. “Dear me, I’m so glad you’re okay – but don’t go near the side of the ferry again, okay? Let’s not risk repeating what just happened!”

3. “Dude! Where’d you learn to swim like that?!”

10. Okay – last one – You and your owner are on a trip through the winding corridors of the Space Station. After awhile, you find yourselves lost and need to get directions. Approaching a robot Jetsam, your owner gets directions to wherever it is you’re going. While following those instructions, your owner:

1. Pays specific attention to detail and navigates perfectly to your destination.

2. Has you help him/her keep reciting the directions, “Right, right, second left, third right . . .” Eventually, you two find your way.

3. Can’t seem to remember which direction is which and jumbles the instructions together. Since your owner is completely prespositionally impaired, you and your owner are hopelessly lost, and have to find someone willing to be your guide before you are able to arrive at your destination.

Alrighty, you had better have kept track of what your owner would have done in these scenarios, because now you need to add up those answers. Compare your total with the scales I’ve made below. Make sure you follow my advice for each owner! It’ll help you – believe me!

10-15: Your owner is teh awesomeness! Always attentive to your needs, and going totally all-out for you, your owner just plain rocks. Wanna trade?

My advice to you: Don’t ever, ever complain again! Do you know how rare it is to have an owner like that?! Why, if I had an owner like that, I’d . . . I’d . . . okay, I dunno what I’d do. But you get the picture, okay? Enjoy!

16-25: Okay, so you’re owner is practical and sensible . . . oh well. We can’t all have owners who’ll do anything we want. You’ll live.

My advice to you: Just deal with it, okay? At least your owner cares for you and wants the best, even if he/she doesn’t always understand. You’ll be okay.

26-30: Let’s face it, your owner is an absent-minded weirdo! He/she might care about you, but has a uniquely annoying way of showing it. These owners are scary.

My advice to you: Run. Anywhere. Even if it’s into the wall. Just . . . run.

The Darigan Moehog starts as a creak is heard out on the landing. He hastily tosses the pen back into its old pile and half folds, half crumbles the leafs of paper and stuffs them into his pocket. He hides his shock as the door to the office creaks open. There before him stands his owner, ResurrectedWarrior. She looks at him curiously and asks, “Gelrelt, what are you doing in here?”

Gelrelt rises to his hooves. “Writing,” he replies gruffly.

“Writing?” RW repeats optimistically, “Really? What about?”

The Moehog shrugs, “You.”

“Oh, how sweet! Can I see what you wrote?”

“No!” Gelrelt snaps. He walks past RW and out onto the landing. “I’m going outside, okay?”

RW sighs, “Fine. Just don’t be out too long.”

Without another word, the Darigan Moehog trots down the stairs. He takes another pen from the dining room table and scribbles an address on the back of the first page and makes his way to the Neopian Post Office. With a grim chuckle he seals the pages together and slips them into the OUT OF THIS WORLD box, off to the Neopian Times.