What in Neopia is Inside?!

Has this ever happened to you? You go to the Tombola Man, all happy and excited, knowing that you have a chance to win something great, something rare, or something worth a lot of neopoints. With eager anticipation you reach a hand into the box and draw out... A LOSING TICKET!! Awww... And to make matters worse, the Tombola Man, feeling sorry for you, gives you a booby prize. You perk up slightly, hoping it's something you can feed to your neopets or at least be able to sell for a neopoint or two and... HE HANDS YOU AN UNLABELLED TIN CAN!! Honestly, what can be more useless, more pointless, or more of a waste of space in your inventory? Now you have to spend all of ten seconds to go to your inventory and donate or discard the worthless piece of...

But wait... Just stop for a moment and think about it for a moment. Is the Unlabelled Tin Can really all that pointless? I mean think about it... someone obviously took the time, effort, and materials to make the thing, so there must be a reason. And the fact that it is not labelled should make it more, not less, meaningful. Someone went through all the trouble of making it, but they did not label the can. Why? Maybe... just maybe, the Unlabelled Tin Can is hiding something under that seemingly useless exterior... but what?

Now here we have arrived at the point of this article. What could possibly in that Unlabelled Tin Can that has been eluding Neopians for years? What? Did you just say that you think there is absolutely nothing but a piece of empty space inside the can? You know, that might just be exactly what they want you to think. What? Who’s they, you ask? Well, um... It could be TNT, escaped Sloth drones, a rogue group of malevolent Meepits, or the Great Daunting Super Overlord of Neopets. Just use your imagination. Anyways, back to the can. Ah, but first we have to open said tin can. How can we open the tin can? Well, since nobody has ever bothered to try, there are a few possibilities that might work.

1. Give the Unlabelled Tin Can to your neopets for them to play with. After all, they always break those expensive toys that you spend your hard-earned neopoints on to buy for them, don’t they? Don’t believe me? Pay a visit to Donny’s Toy Repair Shop at the top of Terror Mountain and you will see that his business is flourishing, with a continuous stream of Neopians waiting to get their broken toys fixed by him. Now how do you suppose half of those toys got broken?

2. But what if your neopets happen to be mild-tempered and do not rip the head off the first Fuzzle you let them play with? Well, if this applies to you, I’m sure we can think of other ways to break open this Unlabelled Tin Can. What about those outrageously expensive Battledome weapons that you can buy? Are you telling me that your Flaming Dagger of Fire or your Emerald Sword, or even your Enchanted Pudao is unable to cut through the top of the Tin Can? For goodness sakes, that’s absolutely pathetic. I mean, it’s only made of tin...

3. If you become really desperate, you can try this. Lock one of your Unlabelled Tin Cans in a closet with a Meepit and wait a while... What? I’m just suggesting that if you leave the pair of them in there long enough, something might happen... You never know... right? Besides, have you seen the teeth on those things!? Who knows what a Meepit is capable of when it thinks no one is watching it. A word of warning, though: don’t stare into one of those Meepits’ eyes for too long...

4. Finally, ask politely and see if one of those nice guys from The Neopets Team can take a while out of their precious time and consider making a new item called the Unlabelled Tin Can Opener.

Before you go through all that trouble, however, you should consider what might be inside the tin can. Is it worth all your troubles to be able to look inside? What could possibly be in there...?

1. Maybe Dr. F Sloth created them. Yeah, he could have hid one of his creations in there, and, by mass-manufacturing the Unlabelled Tin Can, he made sure that all unsuspecting Neopians possessed one, with a dozen more in the Money Tree at any given time to spare. And maybe, when he realizes that none of his plans at world domination are working, he would, in a fit of rage, press a button, releasing from every one of the Unlabelled Tin Cans an unimaginable, dastardly... Hey, wait a minute! Did the tin can that I just had on my desk move?! I swear, look, it’s about half an inch further left than where I placed it! Hey... um... does anyone else hear a rattling sound...? Um... let’s move on to the next point shall we... please?

2. Maybe it will be a super awesome amazing never-seen before weapon/food item/paint brush/magic item/potion/sock/asparagus... (continue listing everything Neopianly possible). Maybe it will be something so cool that when you show your friends they will all start scouring the Shop Wizard and buying Unlabelled Tin Cans to get one for themselves. Or you can buy a can, pretend to find something absolutely, unbelievably amazing in the can and freak out your friends.

3. You know those other cans that the Tombola Man hands out from time to time? You know, the Tin of Olives, the Baked Beans, and the Musho Mushy Peas? Yeah, those. What if the label just happened to, um, fall off one of those...?

Maybe this article will finally prove that the Unlabelled Tin Can that had been neglected, discarded, and ignored for so long by Neopians everywhere is not, in fact, just a waste of pixels. Maybe it will encourage some particular Neopians to hard these useless cans in their Safety Deposit Box, hoping to score big when TNT at long last announces the Unlabelled Tin Can Opener. Or maybe the only thing this article will accomplish is to unbalance Neopia’s economy and make the price of the Unlabelled Tin Can skyrocket needlessly. Or maybe... well, enough speculations. Why don’t you just go out there and try everything you humanly can to unravel the mysteries of the Unlabelled Tin Can once and for all?

Thank you for reading this article to the end. Hope you enjoyed it. Comments and thoughts are welcome!