Clean Your World: Discard or Donate?

And it's not just rotting footwear we're talking about here.

Have you completed the still (as of this printing) on-going plot in Altador? Oh, King Altador is all smiles when you enter his chamber every day. He gives a little speech about being of great service to their land, and offers to give you another gift. Excitedly, you put your hands out and close your eyes waiting for something fabulous! Unfortunately, most of the time, the King hands over yet another Water Mote. Near worthless! Especially since quite a number of Neopians don't battle, and those who do aren't exactly thrilled to equip their champion pet with something like that.

Let's talk about Key Quest for a moment. It's one of my favorite games in all of Neopia! Where else can you find nail-biting excitement, the challenge of playing with other skilled players, and the surprise of a unlocking a possible paintbrush with a gold key?

The problem is what happens to all of the, shall we say, less desirable items you are awarded when turning in dozens of dozens of keys. While your pets really do love reading, they only want to read each book once. And even Sally can't sell so many junk sea-shells by the seashore.

Oh, but the worst culprits of all are the folks over at Meri Acers Farm. While all of us can appreciate a rousing game of Potato Counter every now and then, there is something quite terrifying hidden among the expansive berry fields that a yellow Gelert presides over. For four-hundred Neopoints, you're handed a basket, pointed in the general right direction, and given the ability to Pick Your Own berries. There are some mighty interesting varieties of berries to be found, to be sure, but more often than not, there is one item you won't be too pleased to have stinking up your basket: The dreaded Pile of Dung!

Now, I won't get too detailed about the subject here, but there is one important thing you need to know about the Pile of Dung. Someone thought it'd be a brilliant idea for the item to be wearable! That's right. You can put this Pile of Dung you've discovered deep in the heart of Meridell and place it in your Closet to later customize your Neopets. While a single Pile of Dung is more than enough to make any Uni frown, I imagine it'd be useful should your Korbat be turned snot colored by the Lab Ray. But what are you going to do with all of those other piles?

Piles of Dung! Piles and piles are donated and cycle through the Second-Hand Shoppe. It's reported that the smell is so bad coming from that Ruki's store, it can be smelt by tourists taking a leisurely glass bottom boat ride over in Kiko Lake!

So what can be done about these problems, you may ask yourself? More accurately, I'm hoping you're asking me since I'm the one writing about this very important topic!

Fortunately, the solution is easier than collecting yet another copy of The Neopian Times Issue 3 from the Tiki Tack Man while playing Tombola. Ask yourself this very simple question: Discard or Donate?

A very useful tool in your inventory is called Quick Stock. It's part of a list of options above your items right after it says "Jump to." If you select this option, your inventory changes to show each of your items by name, giving you several options on what you'd like to do with them. All options may not be available for each item, but include: Stock, Deposit, Donate, Discard, Gallery, Closet, and Shed.

Now, when you know an item is absolutely, positively worthless because you've looked up the price before using the Shop Wizard, or you've collected seven-hundred fifty-seven dozen of them yourself, from now on, I, and so many Neopians out there would love it if you selected "Discard." Naturally, if you are for some odd reason mass-collecting something, or otherwise want to hold on to the item, this doesn't apply. Otherwise, toss it out. Make it disappear forever by selecting "Discard."

Broken Fishing Pole? Not even Donny the Toy-Repair Man will touch it up on Terror Mountain! Discard!

Rotten Berry? Will Skeiths even eat these? Would you even want to ask them if they would? Discard!

Tombola Pencil Sharpener? Please! Tiki Tack Man, we donate to you to keep you in business. Stop it! Discard!

Imagine how amazing it would be to visit the Money Tree and find ourselves scrambling to be the first to claim actually useful items nice Neopians have donated? Instead of a mad-dash to the pile and coming back with a few scrapes on our face and a Reject Curly Shaped Sand to show for our efforts, maybe we'd find a book one of our Neopets hasn't read yet. Or even better, we could lay claim to some of our very own hard earned Neopoints the Ghosts have recently made off with!

And that doesn't even begin to describe how awesome the Second Hand Shoppe would become if it weren't mostly clogged with truly disgusting Piles of Dung! Why, I imagine the Ruki's mood would improve greatly once the place aired out a bit. I can imagine they'd cheerfully wave goodbye to you as you take back to your Neopets some interesting wearables for them to enjoy!

So, in closing, I'd like to make a final appeal to you. Before simply donating your entire inventory's full of truly worthless items to charity, before you lay one more Giant Bath Plug on the pile at the base of our beloved tree, ask yourself if it really is truly charitable to be giving it. Wouldn't you rather give, and in return, get something greater? Decide more carefully and choose "Discard" over "Donate" when the item deserves to go in the trash.

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VyddenDarkblade has made it his solemn vow that in Year 11 he will be more discerning on which items he'll donate. This is his second article published in The Neopian Times. The first article was about random events entitled, "Something Has Happened Not Happening."