Webkinz - Addiction Warning
It started so innocently, like most manias I guess. My husband and I were at a Kite festival, well he was, I was just hanging around. I spied a stuffed Bullfrog on a display. I am not normally a stuffed animal person and my kids and most of my grandkids aren't either, but there was just something about that frog.
Then they got me. There was a sign that if you bought one you could get another 'grab bag' animal for free (sort of) - ten dollars for two. I grabbed the frog and a brown paper sack from the display - and inside was another Bullfrog! So, my granddaughter is 9-years-old, and I figured she might like it.
The person who took my money asked me if I knew about Webkinz and I said, "No, I just love the frog." What's to know about a stuffed frog, right? "Well, register your frogs online when you get home so you can play." Then another customer needed his attention so that's all I knew.
I emailed my Granddaughter the next day and sent her the info on the tag attaced to her Webkinz frog. I registered mine, named him "Smiley" and also made him a 'him' and logged off.
A couple of days later my daughter called me (from Memphis, I live in Michigan) and asked how "Smiley" was doing. "I don't know, I answered, why?"
Well, I got quite of earful about 'why'. It seems that I not only purchased a stuffed frog and made him a 'him', but I took on another whole responsibility! I was supposed to 'feed' him, make sure he was happy and healthy and earn money to do this. Great. So Granddaughter, Zoe, helped me buy him food and decorate his room.
Over the past few weeks I have added a bathroom and kitchen, stocked his fridge, put in a backyard with a trampoline, hammock and a veggie garden (which I must tend, but do get free veggies) and added a "Minikinz" toy Poodle . The Poodle now also has a room and shares the kitchen and bath with Smiley. She is a she and also plays on the trampoline, tends the garden and naps in the hammonk.
We went to a family reunion recently and I discovered that my nieces and nephews also have Webkinz and we can all get online and visit each other's rooms and 'play' together!
In order to support Smiley and and Miss Daisy's lifestyle, I have to go to a mine once a day and search for gems, play the "Wheel of Wow!" and try my luck at the "Wishing Well 2' (I'm not sure what happened to #1). This usually provides me with enough Webkinz Dollars to feed them. I play sillly, yet addicting games, to buy the extras. My husband is usually the computer geek in the family and plays games for hours, so he didn't know how to react last night when he asked me a question and I barked, "Not now! I'm at Level 6 in the 'Home By Dark' game!" You see, I almost had enough money to add a swimming pool to Smiley's back yard or add a second bathtub.
