cool dry place

The Neopets frenzy has reached new heights today at the dimly-lit buying place. The coworker is winning at a Flash game wherein a purple squirrel falls out of the tree and the player’s character hits it with a baguette to see how far it will go. Points are awarded.

A baguette.

The prize for belting this violet rodent a good 300 yards is the “Batting a Purple Squirrel with a Baguette Home Game!” A cartoon illustration of a generic boardgame box with a squirrel corpse rolling out of it appears on the screen.

“Is The King of Internet going to mail you a board game?” I ask incredulously.

“No. It’s just a prize in the game.”

The Home Game is simply a digital figment, and could as easily be a tin widget or some manner of fictional omelette. It’s value, the coworker explains, lies in the fact that it makes other players jealous.

Envy is a currency now. And stand-ins for stand-ins are traded like things. I can feel reality sliding away from me as I stare at the screen and it gives me a headache. Cross the stock market with Pokemon and Lovecraft and here you are. The internet is training your children to be Jeffrey Skilling.

I suppose this sort of thing is bound to happen in a society where people are allowed to reach their mid-twenties under the belief that Spinal Tap was a real band. Irony doesn’t register in the minds of these people.