Donny and Neopia’s Un-Repairable Items

"Neopets love good companionship, they need to be fed and cared for, and they love to play. Every owner has gone out and bought their pets a Fuzzie Bear or a Gumball Machine, and they've spent hours together playing with Red Toy Cars and Meridell Toy Planes," Donny explains. "Toys take us away from the monotony of the day to day and open up this whole new world. They create this imaginary world we can immerse ourselves in, and let us take a new look at our world, seeing things with a different perspective. Whether that be through roleplaying with your Red Mynci Puppet, exploring one’s home anew with an Astrolabe in hand, or pretending you are a knight in shining armor with your Plastic Sword, we all like to have a little break now and then."

Unfortunately, sometimes, halfway through your play day the worst happens, disaster strikes, and you drop your Air Faerie Snowglobe, leaving it in shatters! Or maybe your Super Duper Scooter runs over a nail and gets a flat! Now you are stuck with this broken toy and a gloomy cloud to follow you for the rest of the day. If you were a rich Neopian you could just afford to buy a brand new toy, but not all of us can afford that luxury (and a new one just isn’t the same) and that's where Donny comes in!

For a small fee of a few hundred Neopoints, you can bring your Neopet's favorite toys in for repair and get them fixed up brand new.

"Working with Neopians to bring their old toys back to a working state is my passion," related Donny while I spoke with him at his workshop. "We spend countless hours playing with the same toy, it almost becomes a part of us, a part of our identity, and when that breaks...well, it's like a piece of us is lost with it. I do my best to fix every toy that comes across my table."

Occasionally Donny will get stumped while trying to fix your toy. In situations like those, he will either accidentally destroy your toy and turn it into a Pile of Rubble, or if you are a bit luckier, he will dig back in his stash of rarer toys and reward you with one. Yes, that's right! Donny has a whole secret stash of toys that he has worked on in the past that perhaps no one has come back to claim, that he has built himself, or that he has found lying around Neopia and worked on in his spare time.

"I'm not perfect, and I don't claim to be, but there are some toys that are just beyond repair. Plushies require a few stitches, those are simple enough, but there are retired toys where I just can't get a hold of the parts anymore." Donny continues on, "I do try to save the pieces from toys I couldn't fix. That way if someone brings another broken one in, I can combine the two to make at least one work."

But there is something that Donny seems unable to fix...

"It's impossible for a craftsman to fix a broken heart. A broken heart needs time to heal, no one can rush that process, and that translates to the hearts of the toy world as well. Unfortunately, cinnamon-sugar alone will not seal up the Broken Cinnamon Hearts enough to resemble their original form. Even my love of the spice cannot fix that one. And people will bring by their Broken Heart Keyrings or Broken Heart Trinkets and ask me to fix them too - to patch them up and put them back together," Donny sighs while he fiddles with a toy that he's been working on. "But it just isn't possible. All the glue in the world and there would still be signs of that crack. The best thing is to appreciate it in it's new form, to learn to adapt to how your toy has changed and to continue it’s story. Why should it end there? A Broken Heart Cookie doesn't taste any less delicious just because it is in two parts now, and now it has frosting to hold it together. And for those who want to stay warm at home and use glue to fix your toy hearts, that’s okay too! I recommend adding some gold paint to it – the filled cracks make it more valuable. Besides, your care of the trinket proves its value exceeds that of mere Neopoints."

Donny's wisdom shines through not just by means of his incredible work, but the way he speaks of toys. He associates real feeling with his work with them, and he understands their power to both connect us with our imaginations and teach us about the world around us.

"Like I mentioned earlier, toys offer you a break. They also provide a fun space to bond with your friends. Playing games with your Neopet creates this amazing interaction between you two: you are doing something together and laughing and just having the best time." Donny has a glisten in his eye while he's speaking. "The world would be a much better place if it had more toys and more playtime, and who knows, we might learn a thing or two, too."

And he's right, we all get caught up in the rush to grow up and rack up all of the best stats. We're so busy obtaining the newest and rarest paint colors and changing the color on our game trophies that sometimes we forget to breathe along the way. We forget the simple joy of snagging some berries in Pick Your Own or just going out to the field and counting potatoes. We forget what it's like to just sit down on the floor and scoot a toy car around the carpet, pretending we are exploring some far away place on some kind of road trip.

Why put your pets in the Neolodge when you can personally play with them? Refoster the connection. Head on down to the toy store, or dig around in your safety deposit box for a broken toy and bring it to Donny, or even take five minutes and pick out the cutest toy you can find and gift it to your friend.

"So the next time your toy heart breaks," Donny says quietly at the end of our discussion, “treasure it, and see if your imagination can’t help you fix it to be more precious than it was in the beginning.”