Your Guide to Trick-or-Treating with Pirate Pets

     But before you can enjoy some Halloween bliss, your Pirate Pets throw a kink in your holiday plans.

     “We want to go trick-or-treating,” they tell you.

     You’re surprised. “Last year, you refused to go trick-or-treating,” you remind them. “You said it was ‘boring,’ and that you’d ‘rather die of scurvy.’”

     “That was before we realized that you got stuff during trick-or-treating,” says your Shoyru.

     “Yeah, we don’t want to miss out,” your Poogle chimes in.

     You have to admit that trick-or-treating seems like an excellent activity for pirates. After all, pirates love getting things. They also enjoy scaring people and indulging in spooky superstitions. It’s a perfect fit! So you agree to let them come.

     The first bump in the road comes when your Pets pick their costumes. Your Uni wants to be Illusen; your Bori wants to be Armin. Your Korbat asks to be a garden gnome, and your Kacheek chooses to be a platter of ham, which is unorthodox but possible if you really use your imagination when making the costume.

     But your Pirate Pets? Well, they don’t want to dress up at all.

     “You can’t go trick-or-treating without a costume,” you try to explain. “You have to be something.”

     “We are something,” your Poogle says in a tone that suggests she feels she’s being eminently reasonable. “We’re pirates.”

     “Something different than usual.” You share the tradition behind Halloween costumes, which is to disguise yourselves from ghosts. But that doesn’t have any effect.

     “We aren’t afraid of ghosts,” scoffs your Shoyru. “If anything, they should be afraid of us!”

     You give up. Let the pirates dress as they want, you figure. They aren’t hurting anything.

     The next trouble comes on Halloween night. At your first trick-or-treating stop (the Soup Kitchen), your Pirate Pets complain about the White Chocolate Korbats that the Soup Kitchen Faerie gives them.

     You’re baffled. “What did you think she was going to give you?”

     “Treasure!” they say in unison.

     You realize there’s been a fundamental misunderstanding. “Neopians don’t give out treasure to trick-or-treaters. Just candy or small trinkets. Like an Almost Gummy Rat (Lime). Or a Mutant Kiko Yoyo.”

     “No dubloons?” your Poogle asks.

     “Or Joy Fun Pops?” your Shoyru adds hopefully.

     “Sorry, no.”

     This explanation leaves your Pirate Pets disappointed and disillusioned, and they show their displeasure by acting out throughout the rest of the evening. They spook Baby Neopets in Neopia Central, trample crops in Meriacre Farms, and even throw Neggs at Coltzan’s Shrine.

     “So sorry,” you say to Coltzan’s ghost as you drag your Pets away. (“I told you we weren’t afraid of ghosts!” says your Shoyru triumphantly.)

     “So very terribly sorry,” you say to the proprietor of the Golden Dubloon after your Pirate Pets initiate an all-out brawl by strategically tripping certain buccaneers.

     “They’re not usually like this,” you inform King Hagan after they call him “a scurvy old pumpkin head.” You don’t know why you say that. They’re always like this.

     By the time you’ve finished the Halloween rounds with your Pets, you’re exhausted, and you feel like crying. You want nothing more than to get these little troublemakers into bed and stress-eat leftover Meerca Bolognese.

     If this sounds like your annual Halloween experience, never fear. There are ways for Pirate pet-owning Neopians to guide those Pets towards better behavior, and they start with these four tips.

     1. Have Cap’n Threelegs put the fear of Neopia into your Pirate Pets.

     If they won’t listen to you, then maybe they’ll listen to an honest-to-goodness pirate. While Cap’n Threelegs is kind of a softie these days, he still knows how to command respect. How else could he run the Swashbuckling Academy?

     2. Distract your Pirate Pets by pointing out the gourmet foods.

     To appease Pirate Pets with a severe treasure-collection obsession, show them how valuable their treats can be. Cookies may not be buried treasure, but they still taste delicious. Cans of Neocola are fun and refreshing. Yoyos double as weapons in a pinch.

     And on some Halloweens, a surprising number of Neopians are even nice enough to pass out Gourmet Club foods to trick-or-treaters. When this happens, as your Pets collect Fright Pops, Chocolate Gum, and Disgruntled Candy Corn, remind the pirates that this is a different type of treasure can be added to their hoards—at least temporarily before it’s time to eat them.

     3. Stop so your Pirate Pets can bob for apples during trick-or-treating.

     Sounds weird, but pirates love water, and they can’t get enough of fruit, which after all is scarce at sea. Just bring your little buccaneers to Apple-Bobbing Bart in Neovia, and let them bob to their hearts’ content! (But be warned … Bart is far from trustworthy, and he has been known to use extra-wormy apples at times. Blech.)

     Your pirates will be so excited about the apple bobbing that their moods will instantly brighten, and they’ll hopefully stop vandalizing everything they see.

     4. Use the carrot and the stick on your Pirate Pets.

     A little context: when you have a particularly stubborn Moehog that won’t get out of the road, you can motivate him by offering a delicious carrot while simultaneously poking him in the behind with a stick. The lure of the carrot coupled with the annoyance of the stick makes the Moehog move forward and out of the road.

     Now, I don’t recommend using a literal carrot or stick on your Pirate Pets. It’ll just make them angry, and angry pirates are, shall we say, far from ideal.

     But you can borrow the principle. A combination of bribery (“You can play with your Krawk Pirate Ship when we get home!”) and punishment (“You have to give 20 of your dubloons to the Money Tree if you can’t behave yourself!”) may bring your Pirate Pets in line when nothing else will.

     Of course, not all Pirate Pets are the same, and you may find that none of these tips work on yours. If that’s the case, brace yourself and push through. While it may be hectic and embarrassing, it’s just one night … and once you get through it, you won’t have to do it again for a full 365 days. You got this! : )