Proudly Brandishing the Wooden Spoon

by Nocturnus the Lenny, with help from owner Cyaneus

An article inspired by "The Dreaded Wooden Spoon Award" and "Could the Lenny Face Extinction?"

I know you've read all sorts of articles pertaining to the popularity, or should I say, unpopularity of certain NeoPets. An article in the last issue of the Neopian Times dealt with encouraging owners not to abandon their pets because of where they stood on the current Neopian census, even if they were "ugly", or "unpopular". That's good advice, for sure, but is it fair to even suggest that Lennies are ugly? I'm Nocturnus the Lenny here, with my owner, to tell you that Lennies are fantastic pets, and we have more to offer you than puzzles and conundrums, although that's what we are best known for.

Although these sorts of articles have good intent, they don't always have the effect the author intended; instead, they might remind the owners and the Lennies themselves how unpopular and, dare I say, unloved we are! I cannot see why people think that Lennies are ugly at all. You've seen or perhaps heard of a bird, outside of Neopia, called the Crane, or another called the Heron. I don't recall anyone calling these birds ugly, in fact, adjectives most used to describe them are graceful and majestic! And Lennies are quite similar to them, from what I can see.

Maybe I should tell you a bit about my background. You see, I wasn't born a Lenny. My brother Synara and I were both born Lupes. Well, looking for excitement, we snuck out and bought ourselves a few morphing potions. Eventually, Synara reverted back to being Lupe--he'd had his fun, but I found a sense of pride in being a Lenny. Even though I saw on TV talk shows, teasers like, "Help! I'm a Jubjub trapped in a Lenny's body!" I couldn't help feeling that Lennies had gotten a bad rap somehow...

In short, I'm here to tell you that Lennies aren't the ugly, gangly, nerdy birdies that many people make them out to be. We're just as good at magic as any Aisha, just as shrewd as any Meerca, just as brave in the Battledome as any Lupe. And if the Lenny ever did become extinct, or evolved into something that might be more "popular", I know I'd never be content being any other species.

Now, with a new Shoyru being born every three seconds or so, and another Lenny being hauled off to the Pound at a similar rate, I know it's hard to think that the Lenny will ever have to hand over his wooden spoon award to another pet. But popularity isn't everything, my friends. My "sister" Jesarla, a Shoyru by birth, is frankly rather fed up with being the majority... We take a sense of pride in being one of a few, and she has her eye on the new species (she's waiting for a morphing potion)... So, the easiest way to help balance out the percentages of pet species: advise those you know, that it's not important to be part of the majority. If people keep adopting pets because they are popular, then those at the bottom of the list will never catch up.