As previously reported, my turnip market was in a dumpster full of toilets this week. There are four distinct turnip price patterns you can get on your island each week, fluctuating, small spike, large spike, and decreasing. You definitely don’t want your market to be constantly decreasing, because if the price is decreasing every day, it is not increasing. That’s math. Guess which pattern I had.

Well, when  I blogged the morning’s turnip price, I had every intention of following up with an afternoon price. But that blog never came. Not because of a sense of ennui brought about by turnip-related depression, but rather because of a miracle.

The only reason, in my opinion, that the turnip market is worth playing in Animal Crossing is that you are not confined to your own island, every island has a different turnip market pattern, and you can take full advantage of another player’s island’s turnip price while visiting.

I do not have a very large pool of friends. But I do have friends who have fairly large pools of friends, or have friends of their own who have larger pools of friends, or are connected to some larger community. And so what happens when you feel your turnip market tanking? You start sending out the feelers. Because chances are, some friend of a friend of a friend has a better price than you, and is more than happy to let folks onto their island to sell.

That’s exactly what happened to me yesterday. Shout out to my friend Olly and his friend Brian, for the 550 Bell/Turnip hookup on the island of Tortuga.

Reader, the game is good. The community around it is good (mostly, I think). It’s possible that there are people out there who see a high turnip price on their island and don’t share it, and I’m sure they have their reasons and that’s fine. But also: people share their turnip prices. We’re all in this together.

See y’all tomorrow for a new week on the Stalk Market.