Orphan Rats

It will be at least nine months until my wife and I have a kid... unless she knows something I don't. Actually, I've always thought her sisters would know she was pregnant before I would. Not just because I'm oblivious to mood swings, but because any news about Target coupons, holiday plans, and babies must be circulated through their phone guild before it reaches the public ear.

With baby plans up in the air, my wife still has the desire to love and nurture something cuter than me. In that light, we went shopping for a fish last week.

Keeping up with my cheap reputation, I made us go to the thrift store for a fish bowl. We actually found a real nice one, without any problems a little Windex couldn't correct. With a habitat secured, we started hitting up all the stores that featured critters: Petco, Animal Ark, and Hot Topic.

Once we walked into the first pet shop I was immediately flushed with memories of my childhood. Whenever I had a few bucks in my pocket I'd hop on my bike and ride down to the local pet shop to buy anything I could sneak back into the house. Over the course of my youth I think I purchased 6 hermit crabs, 2 lizards, 2 turtles, 3 frogs, 1 mouse, and 400 crickets from that store. I was lucky if any of them lived to half their normal life expectancy.

While wandering the isles we were approached by an employee. She asked if we were interested in adopting. My wife's eyes lit up, only to be dimmed when the employee stated, "we have two rats that need to go to a good home, and you guys look like a nice couple."

I couldn't help but think, "wouldn't rats prefer a bad home?"

No way in hell did I want two rats, but I also didn't want to tell the puppy-eyed employee "no." Looking for an easy out from the situation, I mumbled something about not being able to pass a criminal background check. Unaffected, she walked us back to the manager's office.

"They're both adult males," she said as she picked up a cage, "this one here is a hairless variety."

"Oh geez, is it supposed to look like that?" I asked.

"Yeah, hairlessness is a recessive trait, so he's very special. Isn't he beautiful?"

My wife and I took her question as rhetorical and remained silent, except for the sound that arose when I cleared my throat. "Do they pee all over when you take them out?"

"Not really--sometimes they trickle a little bit" she replied. "But that's just to mark their territory," she stated, as if she was their attorney.

"What about their, um, droppings?"

"You don't need to worry about those. Sometimes you'll find them in the corner of the room after you've let them run around, but they're really dry so they pick up easily." She then reached in the cage and picked up one of the pieces of crap. "See?"

After looking at a hairless rat and seeing a girl pick up its droppings, I was ready to come out and tell her we were not going to be the adopting parents for her rodents. At that point, nearly all of the employees in the store had gathered around us, thinking we were going to be the ones to finally take the rats home.

After telling them our intentions, the employee and her co-workers looked at us like we were the scum of the earth. "How could you be so cold?" said the look on their faces. We decided to skip the fish and we headed home. Now on our shelf at home sits an empty fish bowl. Maybe I'll just fill it with water and see if some form of life originates.