Confessions of a Staff Room Feepit

    So since it's the 800th edition of the Neopian Times, I figure I ought to come clean and tell you the truth about who's been running everything from the beginning; and I mean, like, everything. You probably think it's TNT, but nope - it's the Petpets. Why do you think there are so many different kinds of us? A need arises and another Petpet comes out of the woodwork. Robot petpets? Space Station repairs and inventors of cutting-edge technology. Maraquan petpets? They run the Kelp Restaurant and keep an eye on the rubbish from all those pirates, like Doubloons and spare peg legs. Mutant petpets scare the tourists in the Haunted Woods and make sure Edna doesn't get too cranky. I could go on and on, but I guess I'm here to tell you about what I do.

    You look at a Feepit and you might not see much. Sure, we're cute and we're small and we have little fluffy ears and big fluffy tails, but we really like it when things are organized and everything runs like it's supposed to. We started helping TNT in the Staff Room a long, long time ago. We have our own desks. We even go to the meetings.

    Anyway, I've been working here since the beginning. You know how you can collect avatars from all sorts of things? That was my idea. Well, no, I didn't come up with avatars. I was the one who said "Hey, why don't we award avatars for games?" Sorry about the high score ones, we didn't realize how popular everything was going to get.

    Now if you've written for the Neopian Times before, you probably see a twist coming. Well, you're right. We're not the only petpets who decided to help TNT. There were also... Meepits.

    Meepits really are as devious, evil, and interfering as their reputation, but TNT didn't know that, back then. When the first few Meepits showed up, they asked nicely if they could help around the place. Despite my objections, they were assigned to working with code. By the time the first crash happened, it was too late. The Meepits were in every area of the office. It turns out the coding Meepits had been working with the Pteri of Doom all along and the system was threaded with bugs. Luckily, it was an easy fix (they're sort of lazy) but that's where the trouble began.

    TNT kicked them out of the office but quickly realized that it was impossible to get rid of them. They are very small and very good at getting back in. They crawled through A/C vents and stowed away in bags and purses. They skittered through the walls, giggling in a very creepy way. One even had himself delivered in a pizza box. And when they got in, it was a mad house. They played keep-away with a stapler, breaking lamps and knocking over computer monitors. They switched the names on the lunch bags in the staff fridge so everyone kept eating the wrong lunches. They misfiled paperwork and hid all the pens and put whoopee cushions in our seats.

    TNT quickly realized that they had to put these Meepits to work doing SOMETHING or else nothing would ever get done - and this is where it comes back to me.

    TNT assigned them to work on avatars.

    It was the worst day of my life. Suddenly, instead of blissfully daydreaming up new avatars, I suddenly found myself responsible for the loudest, craziest, most diabolical Petpets in all of Neopia. Worse, they came up with the most evil avatars available. Extreme Potato Counter? My high score was 38. All those hopelessly expensive stamp avatars? Meepits. Bilge Dice? and guess whose fault it is that it doesn't work anymore?! Meepits! All the avatars that should work but don't; MEEPITS. All the avatars whose game scores are impossible: MEEPITS.

    Meepits Meepits Meepits!

    One day I snapped. You might have heard of that day. It was March 3rd. The day that TNT got up and crowded around the Staff Break Room table. The day that has since become an office holiday. The Day I Beat the Meepits, or as it's come to be known, Meepit vs. Feepit.

    I didn't mean to do all of that, not really.

    I went to the Break Room Refrigerator to get my lunch (3 carrots sliced into quarters, egg over easy on rye with celery greens) and what do I find?! My little brown lunch bag smashed up into a ball and thrown on the floor.. and a Blue Meepit, eating the last carrot slice of my lunch. He tried to insist that my name wasn't on my lunch bag, but we all know why!

    I challenged him to Trial by Combat on the spot. As it happens, I have a little exercise regimen I do every morning, so I am exceptionally fit for a Feepit. I managed to beat him three times before he gave in. Then of course, another Meepit wanted to fight. I ended up fighting five Meepits that day before TNT finally stepped in and told the Meepits to apologize or they'd all be fired. Maybe TNT finally read my suggestion to have Kadoaties patrol the offices.

    To celebrate my victory, TNT threw a party on the spot and made a game about ME! and then they designed an avatar - of me!

    The best part though, was that most of the Meepits quit on the spot. They couldn't stay in a work environment where they lost a fight, I guess. The few that stayed were too deep in their projects for world domination to leave, but I'm keeping my eye on them. In the meantime, I'm back to doodling avatar ideas while I bask in the regular levels of ambient office noise. When I color-coordinate my ideas, they stay coordinated. My paperclips never go missing. But best of all, nobody steals my lunches anymore.

    And every March 3rd, I play a few games of Meepit vs. Feepit. Just in case.