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A Day in the Life of the Tombola Man!


by werelupe_zap

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     Bzzzt!....Bzzzzt! The alarm clock blares BzzzzZZZZZT! The Tiki Tack (Tombola) man groggily reaches over, looks at the display which says 1:00 AM NST, and turns it off, he blinks his eyes a few times and stretches while he gets out of bed. He gets up, admiring the sun on this nice pleasant morning in the month of Swimming! He goes to brush his teeth, puts his wooden tiki mask on, and gets ready to let hundreds upon thousands of pets, from the native Coconut Jubjubs to the exotic Dimensional Yurbles, risk their luck at his Tombola Stand!

      The morning starts out a little slow, a sporadic smattering of pets playing Tombola, with the big winner, a timid rainbow acara, of the morning coming at 2:45 am NST when she won 328 NP, a Zei and Eo Codestone! She jumped for joy and, even though she couldn’t see it behind the mask, the Tombola man let out a great big smile at the joy his game had brought the sweet pet!

      The Tombola man looks up at the clock on the wall, “5:00 AM!” He exclaims! He rushes to close the door to the hut, where the Tombola game is located, before any other pets can make their way into play. He then hangs a sign on the door that reads ‘Closed. Back in an hour or so’!

      He thinks in his head, “Ah! Now that I have some peace and quiet, time to take inventory and prepare for my trip later on in this afternoon!” and he goes off to count the various items he has in stock to give as prizes or less than desirable, what most pets would call ‘junk’, prizes.

      He brings out a clip board, pulls his mask up so he can see, and marks down the inventory he’s got: 30 Tan Codestones, 200 assorted mystery island stamps, numerous Ghotis, Baby Blus, and other assorted petpets he’s obtained during his trips to the Rock Pool, and all the Brown Sauce he could ever need! He makes a note that he needs to get more gross food and bottled faeries later on in the day.

      The Tombola man looks down at his watch “Wow! 5:59 already?! That time flew by so quickly!”, he puts his mask back down over his face and opens the door back up to the Tombola game hut!

      There is a long line of pets waiting to play the game and he happily obliges each pet that reaches their paw, claw, or wing into the tumbler to pull out a ticket. In this smattering of pets however there is no winner, no pet pulled a ticket ending in 0, 2, or 5. The Tombola man had a frown on his face, because he loves to see the joy on at least one pet’s face when they win an amazing prize! Although he knows the hard truth, that there can’t be a winner every time unfortunately; it just seems extra disappointing this time around though! Ever since the “Mystery Island Commission of Dailies” (MICD) limited the number of prizes that Tombola man can give out, he’s been seeing less and less faces of happiness. Instead he’s seeing more and more faces of either disappointment or the all too often seen “Ah well…...there’s always tomorrow I suppose” droopy face.

      He always questioned why the MICD implemented the limit on the number of prizes he could give out! Did it have something to do with the money tree and rubbish dump getting to crowded with all the junk? Or possibly fellow Neopians were getting too fed up about having to swim through the sea of junk items for sale in a fellow Neopian’s shop just to get to the item they wish to purchase?!

      Because the Tombola man was busy thinking about the pets who left disappointed and if there was anything he could to do fix the issue, he didn’t notice a relatively famous Darigan Gelert strolling over to play Tombola.

      “Excuse me?” the Gelert said trying to get the Tombola man’s attention, his long black wings poking out behind his back and bright red fur shimmering in the sun.

      The Tombola man turned and responded to him with “Yes, I’m sorry I’ll start spin….” he stopped short when he noticed who this particular Darigan Gelert was, it was none other than Tandrak Shaye, the Darigan Citadel’s All-Star forward on their Yooyuball team!

      Even though the Tombola man was a resident of Mystery Island and supported their Yooyuball team as best he could, he always was a big fan of Mr. Shaye and his impeccable play on the Yooyuball field!

      “Wow! Hello Mr. Shaye!” he exclaims, “I’m a huge fan of all the amazing plays you manage to pull off every time you step on the Yooyuball field! What brings you to my Tombola stand?”

      “Please, call me Tandrak” Tandrak responds, “that’s awesome that I’ve got a fan way out here on Mystery Island! The reason I’m here is because I heard from Layton that Tombola was a lot of fun to play, so I just had to come try it for myself!”

      In his head Tombola man is freaking out because his favorite Yooyuball player is right in front of him about to play HIS game! But on the outside he’s as cool as a carrot, he gives the tumbler a few spins and says “Ok Tandrak, stick your paw inside and pull out a ticket! Any ticket ending in 0, 2, or 5 is a winner!” Tandrak does as advised and pulls a ticket out of the tumbler, while the Tombola man is sweating nervously because he hopes Tandrak is having fun!

      “26!” Tandrak exclaims! “Darn...not a winner! But even though I didn’t win, that was still really thrilling and exciting!”

      “I’m sorry you didn’t win Tandrak, I was really hoping you would get an amazing prize” the Tombola man says as he reaches for one of the brown sauces to give to Tandrak, but then he stops.

      Instead of giving him a brown sauce like he was supposed to, he instead gave Tandrak 3 brown codestones and said “I don’t normally give these to non-winners, but this time I’ll make an exception because you’ve brought me so much joy watching you all these years playing the sport we all love!”

      Tandrak looks down at the 3 Eo codestones in his paws, “Ok, I suppose I’ll take them this time, but this is a one time thing! The next time I drop by to say hello and play again, I don’t want any special treatment, treat me like you would any other Neopet, do we have a deal?” as he reached his paw out to shake the Tombola man’s hand.

      “Deal!” the Tombola man responded and shook his strong muscular paw! And with that, Tandrak got back on the boat and headed back to the Citadel to continue his training for this year’s Altador Cup!

      Still beaming with joy from meeting his idol, The Tombola man looks at the clock “Holy moly! I need to go get more items!” he exclaims!

      He grabs his list of items that he needs to get, which he made earlier this morning, and prepares to go to Terror Mountain. In hopes of getting more prizes from an unlikely source: the Snowager who resides in the frosty caverns of the Ice Caves! He puts on his heavy coat, snow boots, and grabs a bag with 30,000 neopoints in it and sets off but not before he hangs a sign on the door that reads ‘Closed. Back in an hour or so’!

     ****

      He reaches the Ice Caves in a few minutes and goes to the Snowager’s lair. He sees his old pal the Snowager, or as he calls him “Snowy” and stares in awe at all the treasure Snowy has collected over the years! The Snowager sees Tombola man coming and slithers over to him, with a big smile on his face.

      “Heeeey Tomb (the nickname that the Snowager came up with for his friend), do you neeeed some more iteeeems?” Snowy asks kindly.

      “Yes I do Snowy, do you have some you can spare? I’m really in need of some bottled faeries and gross food!” the Tombola man says in response.

      Snowy says “Wait heeere, I’ll seeee how many iteeems I’ve got to spare” and he goes back into his cave. The Tombola man only had to wait for 5 minutes before Snowy came back out of the depths of his lair with a giant bag filled to the brim with an assortment of disgusting foods and bottled faeries. The tombola man hands him the bag of 30,000 neopoints and takes the bag with the prizes he hopes will be given away very soon in the future!

      “Thank you Snowy, you are a true friend and I appreciate all the prize items you’ve given me at such a small price over all these years!” the Tombola man says to his friend as he’s about to depart back to Mystery Island.

      Snowy looks at him and responds “Don’t meeention it Tomb! Our frieeeendship is priceleeees and I’m happy to provide you with as many iteeems as you neeed, because you’re one of the feeew friends I have outside of this cave. You are preeeetty much the only peeerson who pays meeee for iteeems instead of just taking theeem while I sleeep!”

      ****

      He arrives back at the Tombola stand and just as it was this morning, there is a line of pets waiting to play. He goes in the back door, drops off all the new items he bought to give away as prizes, takes down the sign, and opens the doors to allow the pets to try their luck at getting a winning ticket! A few pets, a stealthy Techo, red Grarrl, white Buzz, and a fire eyrie came away winners this time! That made the Tombola man very happy that he was able to bring so much joy to those pet’s faces as they walked away with their prizes in hand. He stood and watched as they boarded the boat back to their homes.

      The sun was going down and Tombola man looked as his watch as it flashed “8:50 pm”. The Tombola man turned off the lights and put up the ‘Closed. Back in an hour or so’ sign on the door for the final time that day. He then walked towards his hut on Island Crescent Drive to get a few hours of sleep before waking up again to bring some joy to the faces of his fellow Neopians tomorrow!

          

          

      The End.

 
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