One Man’s Junk…

If you please, may the article heading image be a picture of Granny Hopbobbin at the scene of her correlating charity corner event, please? :) (2018’s CC) I’m not intending this article to be in a new edition of the Neopian Times but to replace the broken article in it’s debut issue, (Week - 821). Since I sent the first revision, my NT trophy count said 2xCHAMPION; (now it says 7xCHAMPION miscounting some of my Dreaming Old Memories series.) After this final coded revision is sent, could this be adjusted, please? :) 1 for the article and 8 for the Dreaming Old Memories series, (9xCHAMPION), as well as NOT to receive any prizes should this be submitted near a special edition! This is to fix something that appeared broken on first printing. Thank you! The following below is the officially coded article to be published, with images, some text with bold print, one bulleted list and important “thank yous” to those who helped.

In the horrid wake of a Wraith attack, Neopia Central was left in disrepair! Many Neopians were even rendered homeless due to the destruction the Wraiths have caused! Faerieland might be handling the Wraiths themselves, but there are not enough faeries in Faerieland to help out each and every Neopian individually.

Local Charity Corner founder, and neopiatarian, Ms. “Granny” Hopbobbin has made it her personal goal of making sure these innocent Neopians are not overlooked or forgotten. Using a NEW method comparative to her other Charity Corner drives, donators can now donate almost ANYTHING that is not retired! This has lead to donators, *coughhoarderscough*, rushing to their Safety Deposit Boxes to retrieve anything that they can donate… but not everything they are donating seems “charitable” to this case. There are Keychains, Bits of Barbed Wire, Unlabeled Cans, and even, (YUCH!!!), Piles of Dung! You might think anyone donating all this probably has “garlic in their soul” to begin with, but after my closer inspection, it seems they are making the junk items just as useful as anything else they receive! Here are a few “junk” Items that are actually being put to use quite nicely:

1. Any Dung/Rotten Food = Fertilizer!

YEEEAAAARRRGH!!!!! What charities would want THAT to be donated to them? Answer… more than you think. Environmentalists and compost managers are at the scene willing to take your… *ahem* “natural organic matter,” and have it scattered to help the plants grow and regrow after the deforestation of their lawns and gardens. These nutrient-rich items are perfect for replenishing what once was! The Environmentalists are here to sort through each item, making sure the dung and the rotting vegetable matter are not in the same place. Fertilizer and compost ARE two different things, you know. (Small note: Milk and Yoghurt do NOT compost; It is converted into cheese.)

2. Old Rotten Boots/Shoes/Sandals = Still wearable footwear!

These shoes might seem ripped, scratched, scuffed and practically broken beyond repair, but they actually still have some life in them! Nearby Cobblers, shoeshines and others who work in the shoe-trade are there donating their time, working on cleaning all of the shoes that are donated. From my observation, they seem to be doing a very good job! Each pair of shoes after they work on them, look almost as good as new!

3. Piece of Wool/Carawool = Clothing material!

Every piece of wool and cloth is being washed and fed into cotton gins, being strung into thread, and put into dedicated knitter’s hands, to eventually be turned into a VARIETY of different things! From hats to shirts to even RUGS! It is not just all wool; It is any tattered bit of clothing too! It is fed into a machine that de-threads the clothing, and collects it up in large spools to be knit or woven into something else. Those who are dedicating their time to knitting all these clothing articles and other home adornments are not the only ones working on this, though. There are clothing making machines nearby, as well.

4. Map Pieces = Potential wallpaper!

(You notice each page matches a part of a grid?)

Map pieces are EXTREMELY plentiful... as well as needed.

Each map piece is collected up into perfect full sets, and given to those who have not explored the map’s destination. If anyone has no use for said map, then the map pieces are instead used as wallpaper! Considering how many Forgotten Shore map pieces there are in circulation, and how many people already know the way there, Forgotten Shore wallpaper is perfect for those little kids who like to play pirate. In the same way, the use of Petpet Laboratory Map Wallpaper is beneficial for those who like science fiction.

5. Poisonous Jelly & Glowing Jelly = Pest repellant/Light source!

At first glance, I assumed that these two seemingly inedible jellies would simply go toward the fertilizer piles. After a short talk with a few volunteer patrons, Visiondance and Pikakeet, I learned that those jellies would actually have different uses; Poisonous Jelly would apparently be made into a pest repellant. The Jelly is liquified and mixed with musk-like chemical odours and non-corrosive adhesive minerals and applied to the crops. The substance, when applied, releases a foul chemical smell, repelling any hungry varmints seeking a snack. The crops do not absorb the substance, though. After the crops are done growing, they are harvested and thoroughly washed to make sure the substance is gone. This eco-friendly pesticide washes away easily, and is also cruelty free. All toxins in the jelly prior to preparations are filtered out! It only SMELLS poisonous.

Along with pest prevention, Pikakeet has informed me that some Petpets can actually digest Poisonous Jelly very well. There would be a bold warning label on the side of canned portions, however, of which Petpets can eat it safely*. Glowing Jelly, however, would actually be used as a low-cost light source. (It also seems some villagers are using the Poisonous Jelly as weapon ammo.)

6. Obsidian/Mossy Rock/Packet of Gravel/any sturdy rock = Infrastructure material!

After a full rampage of these Wraith-monsters, clearly most of the houses have been crushed; Therefore we will need building material for the infrastructure. A lot of these houses were actually made from concrete (see category #8.) and the houses that cannot be fixed with concrete are probably beyond repair. Whatever has been reduced to rubble will be replaced, and the new building will be made from scratch!

Volunteer architects are there creating feasible models of soon to be houses made out of plentiful types of stone! Obsidian buildings are currently being designed and developed for this occasion as we speak. Obsidian is incredibly common to Neopia ever since we have been introduced to the subterranean city of Moltara. It is not only pretty, but it seems to be fairly sturdy! Along with Obsidian is the very strong, very heavy, Mossy Rock! These rocks are held together by a mix of cement and Packs of Gravel to form solid concrete. With ALL this building material, those houses will be completed in no time!

(Sea Fungi, Cinder Block and Cubical, are also a sturdy and viable building material)

7. Various Kelp = Roofing/Baskets/Consumption!

All forms of Kelp, Seaweed, Seagrass, Void Plant, Fern and Algae have a multitude of uses! One such use (as reported by another charitable patron nicknamed “themeepit32”, whom I never got the true name of), is it is being used to thatch roofs! After Void Plant, Sea Ferns and Kelp dry out, they become very sturdy, yet still soft enough to use like rope. If properly installed**, it can be used to make thatched roofs! Another use is weaving baskets! Seagrass and Kelp can be wet, dried, and woven to make strong, sturdy baskets! Finally, assuming you thoroughly wash and season them, Seaweed, Kelp, and Spongy algae can be eaten as a snack or part of a meal! To some Maraquans, they are considered a gourmet delicacy! Fascinating how us “Landies” never thought to try it until times of peril.

8. Sand, Glass, and Shells = Concrete!

A lot of the Tombola’s sand bottles are… not very practical, you have to admit. It IS just coloured sand. If you think donating these items are not worth it to the cause, you couldn’t be FURTHER from the truth! As I walked past a large stack of these seemingly useless items, Pikakeet enlightened me to what greatness these knick-knacks behold! All the sand from these decorative bottles is dumped out and used with the Packets of Gravel to make concrete! This concrete repaves walkways and houses! If the sand that is used in the concrete turns a specific colour, (e.g. orange), then the concrete is used on a house with that intended colour scheme. The homes in Neopia Central are actually VERY colourful, and actually would require concrete with a little colour in it. But the sand turned concrete is not where these bottles stop being helpful. All the glass bottles are recycled! They are sent to a place where it is ground up, reheated, and made into new windows for the new houses! Same goes for the sand that is not turned into concrete, it can also be turned into glass for windows! Along with the decorative bottles, there are several inexpensive seashells that can also be converted into sand for concrete.

9. Metal and Plastic Keychains = Support beams/Utensils/Etc.!

Believe it or not, these are actually REALLY important! Keyrings like the Tiki Tack Keyring or the Pinixy Keyring are entirely made of painted metal! Each “all metal” keyring is stripped of it is paint, melted down, and is recycled into something else! One use of this metal is support beams in the houses that are being reconstructed. Another more humble use is creating utensils for those who lost theirs during the damage or for those who never had any in the first place. I myself have donated over a thousand of the Tiki Tack Keyrings for this charity, and I plan to continue for as long as the event goes on. Other keyrings, aside from their metal ring and chain, (like the Broken Heart Keyring or the Orange Nimmo Keyring) are made of an acrylic plastic.

This plastic is recycled into a plethora of uses…

And speaking of recycled plastic…

10. Unfixable Broken Toys = Actually fixable toys!

You might think some of these are beyond repair, but they are more fixable than we assume them to be! You might have taken your Broken Fishing Pole or your Headless Von Roo Plushie or even your Broken Pencil to Donny the toy fixer from Terror Mountain and he says to you that “it’s fine”… obviously it’s not. Donny can fix broken toys he has the resources for; Anything like a plushie missing a head, or fragments missing from a snapped fishing pole are beyond his reach because he doesn’t HAVE the materials to fix it! (Donny is also very prideful. He does not believe in using tape because he feels that that doesn’t fix anything; Quote “Lazy patch job, that’d be!”) With all this spare recycled plastic, some of it is being converted into toy parts!

Plastic Von Roo heads are being tailor-made for Headless Von Roo Plushies. Machines are set up to scan the divots in the Broken Fishing Poles and 3D printers are printing the pieces needed to put into place. Not only plastic is being recycled, but RUBBER is too! Rubber patches are being super glued into bite-mark holes in Half Eaten Rubber Mallards. The children are very well cared for.

11. Unlabeled Tin Can/Rusty Old Can = More recycling!

Metal is not just gotten from Keyrings, though. If you donate any Rusty Old Can or Unlabelled Tin Can, it also gets recycled! Not only are you assisting the needy, but you’re also helping clean up neopia! Yay! Those Rusty Old Cans have been littering up the beaches for YEARS! This will definitely put those unsightly ocean clutterers to good use! Again, Yay! The Unlabelled Tin Can, though, has more than one donation use...

12. Still Edible Food/Bucket of Sludge = Soup Faerie ingredients/Petpet food filler!

The Unlabeled Tin Can’s contents, as long as they’re still fresh, can still be eaten! A lot of food should be going towards this event because several victims here who don’t have emergency food supplies, likely lost whatever food they had in the tragedy. A lot of these “loose foods” actually have a lot more to give. The Soup Faerie, who has made her primary directive to assist those who are in need, is on the scene supplying free food to those who have been affected by the Wraiths… SHE needs our help just as much as they do! Some foods are actually ingredients she needs to make certain soups and meals at the Soup Kitchen! It is actually a common misconception that if a fruit or a vegetable has a couple spots, then it is inedible. If you bring them to the Soup Faerie, (who like any other faerie, HAS MAGIC!!!), she can heal the “spots” and “rot-spots” on said foods and still use them in her meal preparations! The neopians are not the only ones who have to eat, you know. Many hungry Petpets are also tended to. After closer investigation of the Bucket of Sludge, it seems the top layer is all goopy, wet sand! After the top layer is scraped off, the underneath is actually full of sea vegetation and is almost completely edible to Petpets! The Soup Faerie is a lot more magic than we give her credit for. Not just in spells, but in pure, selfless kindness!

And lastly

13. Bit of Barbed Wire = Wire fences!

Fully licensed and banded blowtorch welders are there connecting Bits of Barbed wire to rebuild wire fences that were broken down and ripped apart. A lot of the pieces of the once-were fences are either mangled beyond repair, or just lost all together. Bits of Barbed Wire are very important to the restructure of these fences. Those fences keep out hungry, livestock-eating wildlife to some, and keep out harmful thieves or intruders to others. Bits of Barbed Wire are like puzzle pieces being carefully put into place. After a piece has been measured to fit perfectly, it is welded into place. I, personally have a collection of Bits of Barbed Wire *ahem* that I was reluctant to donate all of... hehe... Oh, don’t judge! Almost everyone’s got SOME sort of junk-item collection.

So don’t feel bad about all this junk being donated. When they said they needed everything, they literally meant EVERYTHING! If you just used this as an excuse to clear out your Safety Deposit Box, that’s okay! What you did was still important, helpful AND essential! And the things I have listed above are not the only trash items that are also needed.

1) The Petrified Bones are washed off and given to Petpets,

2) Lucky Bone Necklaces are being used as fishing hooks,

3) The Mouldy Petpet Beds are re-stuffed, patched up, and STRENUOUSLY sterilized before being given to a Petpet….and…

4) even the ATROCIOUSLY LOUD Chomby and the Fungus Balls Jackets, can find new life in upholstering couches and chairs.

Really does do your heart good knowing what you did was all to help those who are not doing too well.

On a separate account, after going through so many abandoned account shops, I have been inspired to write another article about the event: Everybody’s gone… but I’m still here…

A grandiose thank you to the Neopian Times veteran Parody_ham for the suggestion to write the article in the first place! I’ve always wanted to write for the NT but I never got around to it. Thank you for that nudge! To Pikakeet, Visiondance, the unnamed Neopian called “themeepit32”, and the collective donative patrons of my sources for the revelations of where some donations went. And lastly to 1jedigirl! My editor! If it weren’t for her, this article wouldn’t be half as good as it is now!

Sometimes it really takes a time of need for us to give like this, but it shouldn’t have to come to that before we do! We should be helping out whenever we can! However possible! And even if you think what you have done for this event might be small or nothing important, just remember: One man’s junk… might be another man’s treasure.

DISCLAMERS:

*Please do NOT give this jelly to ANY Petpets not on the approved list!

**To learn proper thatching technique, please read “Designing a Thatched Roof” at your local library.