My webkinz got eaten by a wolf and other fourth grade urban legends

Know what I suck at? Not giving away the punchline in the title.

Webkinz. For those of you without 6 to 13 year old children, a brief tutorial:

You pay between $10 and $15 for a small stuffed animal at a Hallmark store. Your child registers him online and then plays with him virtually.(1) They get "jobs" to get money to buy their pet food, clothes, furniture and toys. Kind of like real life. Except that in real life my kids won't put away their own laundry but they'll go into mines to find diamonds for their pets.

Plus they learn important lessons ~ like you need to tip Arte at the "curio shop" extra well to get him to sell you something special.

Awesomeness.

Now the Webkinz folks are brilliant but evil. Because one year after you "adopt" your pet, once you've nursed him thru his little illnesses and decorated his room in the latest Egyptian theme, well, then your webkinz "expires."

Meanwhile ShallowGal sits at a computer in her laundry room

And exactly what they mean by expires is the stuff of which fourth grade urban legends are made.

Jake "has a friend who knows someone" who was online the exact second her webkinz account expired. And a wolf came into her pet's room and dragged it off. Lordy, even I'm going to have nightmares over that one.

You know what I heard from my friend when I was in the fourth grade? That if you ate too many pop rocks and then drank a Pepsi, your stomach would explode. (2) As a matter of fact that's how Mikey (the kid from the Life cereal commercial) died.

Fortunately, a quick google search proved both of these things to be untrue. By buying a new webkinz you can obtain a year-long stay of execution for your beloved pets. And pop rocks are safe and back on the market.

Fourth graders are so gullible. Now that ShallowGal is older and wiser, she needs to go buy a bonsai kitten.

1) Meaning they have this new toy and are still managing to monopolize the computer
2) Hence my preference for diet coke. I have three kids (and eleven webkinz) to take care of, no point in taking chances.