PARENTS: DON'T LET YOUR CHILDREN GROW UP TO AND WORK IN PET SHOPS!!!!!
by Phil Benes / MCA
Reprinted from the December 2004 "All Cichlids"
After many year in therapy, group counseling and psychoanalysis, I can finally bring my life threatening experiences to pen that haunted me during my formative years, long ago. This was at the time I was in high school and fo8und myself working in a pet shop. What could be more fun that to be working with all the interesting animals these stores sell, dealing with pleasant customers who never have any problems and, of course, not to mention all the fabulous discounts all store owners give their employees. Sure beats bagging groceries at the corner grocery store, doesn't it? I'll write all this advice to all you parents now, or to any high school student contemplating a job at the pet store. I have two children myself and......well, more on that later. Read on....
Reason #1 - Even things without teeth still bite!
I'm sure all of you have been through a pet shop and have noticed the cute, smiley, very somber, slow moving lizards all the shops sell. Well, guess what happens to those beauties when they manage to get loose? They always seem to pick the busiest times of the day, week, month, and then they try to jump on the closest woman they can find. This, of course, is followed by much screaming, waving of arms and general commotion, convincing all the other customers in the store that an axe murderer is on the loose. Once you finally locate the source of the noise, that cute, smiley, somber, slow moving lizard is now backed into a corner, just daring you to grab him. Of course, you oblige since he's cute, smiley and now not very somber, and eight stitches in your thumb later, you realize that grabbing him was not such a good idea. It turns out he was better at grabbing you than you were grabbing him. Also, the eight hundred customers that now have noticed there is no axe murderer after all are laughing hysterically as you try to shake the 3-foot cute, smiley, somber, slow moving and now, all mouth, lizard off your thumb.
Reason #2 - They Sell Snakes / They Lose Snakes!
All of you who have grown up in the sixties or before should remember that Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom with Marlin Perkins was required viewing every Sunday. Never did I think that watching that program would prepare me for a future encounter. Imagine, here you are, sixteen years old, on top of the world, no customers to interrupt your meditation at the pet shop, when in through the door barges the owner of the donut shop next door and announces to the world that one of your snakes is loose and chasing his customers out of his donut shop. You think, good idea, maybe they'll come into the pet shop after this close encounter of the snake kind, but realize that this is probably not what Mr. Donutshop wants to hear. So, you think, you've handled snakes before, you just reach into the aquarium that houses them and pull them out , no problem. Well, imagine your horror when your self confidence in catching the critter flees as quickly as Mr. Donutshop's customers when you see that the monster snake is the biggest, meanest, and probably the most venomous ( at least ten times worse than a coral snake) animal you have ever looked at, without the safety of three foot thick glass between the two of you. Well, being sixteen years old, and as all of us parents now know, at this age, not all the brain tissue is functional, you do what anyone who had seen Mr. Marlin in action would do. You grab the nearest forked stick you can find and nail the snake right behind the head before he nails you. Well, unfortunately, the snake must have watched the same program I did as, no sooner did I lunge with the stick, he was gone. I'll bet he's still loose, chasing customers around Berwyn, Illinois, and now probably at least 60-feet long.
Reason #4 - And on the Eighth Day, God Created Wolfish!
Seeing as this is going into a fish publication, I'm sure all of you readers are feeling pretty safe about letting your kids work in aquarium only stores. Well, read on. Back in the late 60's piranhas were all the rage. These were touted to be the meanest, nastiest, man-eating fish that you, too, could take home and impress your friends and neighbors with. Well, unfortunately, as was more often the case than not, these mean, nasty, man-eating fish that you bought to impress your friends soon turned into aquatic "chickens". Big disappointment? Well, not to worry, they invented something bigger, meaner, nastier and, given the chance, a real man-eater, at least a piece at a time - the wolfish. When this fish hit the market, it did not have this catchy name, only a Latin name no one could pronounce, let alone even care about. So the owner of this store, in his infinite marketing wisdom, decided to make up a new name: "Piranha Eater" The biggest problem with the "piranha eater" he thought that there was only two available in the whole world ( at least that's what the wholesaler said). Obviously, the world was going to beat a path to our pet shop door since we now had both of them. Too bad it was only two!
One sells right away to someone we had never seen before and, come to think of it, we never saw again. The owner gets that $$$ look in his eyes and starts to call everyone in the known world to find another. However the second one is a different story. This fish turned out to be the Energizer Bunny of fishdom, he keeps going and going and going and no one is going to buy him, ever. Feeders get to be too expensive as it eats about 40,000 at a sitting, and it has lots of sittings, so he gets moved to horse meat. Three horses later, and he's still going strong. I try to make it my mission to sell this thing and save the last remaining horses in the world. After working on one of our regular ( soon to be irregular) customers for months, he decides to buy it, cheap at $50. Now I know how nasty this fish is, so I put on the welding gloves, steel tips and all, and get 87 fish nets, a large plastic bag, and a styrofoam box to put the fish in. So far, so good. The wolfish has only shredded 62 nets before I can get him into the box and all my fingers are still intact.
Then it all came crashing down. As all of who have ever bagged fish knows, the key to assure the fish stays alive is a little water and a lot of air. To do this, all you have to do is open the bag wide and, with a quick motion, grab the bag and force a good volume of air into it. Unfortunately, I forgot to tell the wolfish about what I was doing. Werner Von Braun (the father of modern rocketry) would have been proud of this missile as the wolfish, all two feet of him, shoots right out of the box, locks on to the nearest target, in this case my chest, and tries to perform open heart surgery on me. It's a miracle I'm still alive, but at that time my man concern was in getting the thing off my chest ( stupid 17 year old pride) before the customer noticed and changed his mind. Well, I did get it off, and the customer didn't notice, just a torn shirt and a 17 year old human with a few pieces missing. It's a a good thing I didn't do what you see a lot of kids working in stores do today, blow into the bag to inflate it. If I had done that, I would be writing this with a lisp now.
Reason #4 - Moray Eels Can Fly!
Back when saltwater tanks were just getting started, a lot of the fish on the market were from the Caribbean. While there are many very nice Caribbean fish, people are always looking for something different. Enter moray eels. Not the small, tame well-mannered Hawaiian types. We're talking about large, green and nasty. The amusing thing about one of these four foot green terrors ( no, not the cichlid), was that the one at the store never bothered anything in his tank. He left all the fish alone, as well as thee thousand pounds of rocks anchoring the lid. However, if you put your hand into the tank to clean the glass or whatever, this is when he thought he could fly. While his flights were not very long, they were exciting. Wilbur and Orville would have been proud, for what he lacked in endurance he made up in points. This eel had the knack of always landing on or near a customer, and then slithering, at least 150 miles an hour, sometimes towards customers; sometimes away. He always caused a great deal of excitement during these flights. I kept waiting for the day this guy would take a chunk out of someone on his semi-weekly flights and give new meaning to the term "lady fingers".
Reason #5 - Budgies are not Your Buddies!
Now what can be cuter than a nice, small, loving parakeet that loves people? Someone forgot to tell the parakeet that. I used to cower in fear when I would see a mother ( or father) with a kid or two pause in front of the parakeet cages and say, "Oh, he's so sweet, we have to take him home with us". This was the cue for all the employees to immediately evacuate the building. Unfortunately, I must have missed the memo as I always seemed to be the only employee left to deal with parakeets. What most people don't realize is that parakeets are not nice or loving automatically, but that they do have a very sharp beak and, worst of all, they are born with the knowledge of how to use it. It would never fail. You would grab hold of the bird to put it into the temporary transport container (box) and the bird would bite down on your thumbnail, slide it's beak over so it would go into the flesh next to the nail, and then sink it's beak into the meat of the thumb as far as it would go. Now, we're not talking about a quick nip and it's done. No, this thing would bite and was clamped on for good. I think I lost twenty years off my lifespan, smiling at the customer while this was happening and saying, "Oh no, it doesn't hurt much", while all the time wanting to choke the little beast.
Reason #6 - Even Cute Little Things Can Nail You!
My favorite time of the week ( well, not really) was tank cleaning day. This was the designated day that a set of tanks would be torn down, cleaned, and put back up looking fresh and clean. Since I was the store's saltwater expert (I was the only employee with a grand total of one saltwater tank at home), I had the honor of maintaining the saltwater section. So, on this day, I proceeded to take out all those critters that could damage me, such as several lionfish ( everyone knows these are venomous), the stingray (ouch!) and, of course, my friend Wilbur the flying moray eel. The other fish I left in, as they wouldn't get in the way and it was more bother to remove them than not. So here I am, merrily cleaning away when I brush against a fish's fin with one finger. In about thirty seconds this brush turns into liquid fire, followed by a nearly dislocated elbow as I retract my hand at light speed. Remember, at that time my brain cells were not totally functional yet.) . As I feel my finger burning like it hit a soldering iron (don't ask me how I know what that feels like), I notice a little blue tank swimming away with a I-told-you-so attitude written all over it's face.
All the while the tang is going about his business, I notice that the burning sensation is letting up. So much for the good news! Now, it seems that my finger is getting numb. Not only is the one finger getting numb, but the ones on either side are also getting numb. Looking at the finger of death on my hand, you can't even see where the fish touched it. Not to worry. Enter the marvels of modern medicine, a quick call to the hospital to get them ready for my arrival, and I should be as good as new, shortly. Right! Wrong. They only know about one venomous animal, a snake that lives in Illinois, and they have no idea about my fish sting problem. Their advice is to not come down, call Miami or someplace by the ocean that knows fish. Seeing as this fish probably came from the Philippines ( we hadn't heard about cyanide at the time), the boss aid that a call to the islands was out of the question. At this time, all my life images started to flash across my brain, at least 10 seconds worth. Twenty seconds later, seeing I was still alive, I made a mental note that if I survived this night and ever had a heart attack, don't take me to this hospital as they would probably tell me to go to heartland. As luck would have it, that month's The Marine Aquarist ran an article on lionfish venom and that heat could denature it. So, three hours later and with a slightly scalded hand, feelings started to return to normal, although the felling toward that hospital will never be normal.
Reason #7 - Store Owners Are Crazy!
All of us have been in many, many pet shops and can any of us say we have met many store owners who were sane? Well you should try working for one of these guys to really find out. These is no pet shop school for training potential employees. It's throw-the-baby-into-the-pool-and-see-if-it-can-swim time. While all the stores start out slowly with their raw recruits, say for at least a week or two, these recruits are granted expert status on everything from arowanas to zebras soon afterwards. It's an amazing transformation to watch. In two weeks worth of time these guys can transform someone, who the week before thought cichlids were a brand of gum, to having them "help" a customer sex angelfish. Remarkable, isn't it what these guys can do. Just the other day, I was in a store and while looking at the various labels on the tanks I noticed that the spelling on several of the fish were incorrect. When I pointed this out to the nearest employee, in a friendly manner of course, it was quickly explained to me that my information was obviously incorrect. Why just look at this tank that contains a whole new species, called anglefish. Talk about putting a new bend on an old species!
Reason # 8 - Customers Are Even Crazier!
My least favorite day of the week was Sunday, so naturally, the boss made me work each and every one. On Sundays we would always run a huge ad with many specials intended to draw people into the store so they would spend money on other items as well. My favorite special of the week were the Chinese Algae Eaters. We would run these at four for a buck and people would line up outside waiting for their chance to buy some of these. To make it easy on ourselves, we would put about three million of them in a 30-gallon tank and, when a customer wanted some, swoosh went the net, flop into the bag, next customer please, thank you very much. But as fate would have it, I would always end up with one customer who had to have that one algae eater that was special in the customer's mind. If you have ever tried to catch one of these things, it is probably the most difficult fish I have ever had the privilege of chasing. So, you do your best, after all you are a Scout, and finally, after three hours, you catch the one in three million the customer pointed to and then hear the customer say, "that's not the right one". So, after another three hours, you come up with the same fish you had hours ago (or who can tell, they all look alike) and the customer finally decides it's the right one and then says, "OK, now lets go pick out some neons". ARGH!!!
I started this out as a warning to you parents. So having two kids of my own, I guess you would think that they would have followed my advice, right? Well, at least one of the two did. He didn't seem to inherit the need-to-work-in-a-pet-shop gene, but the other son did. And guess what, I'm hearing the stories about flying eels, store owners, lizards that bite .... the list goes on. All I can hope is that one day all his brain cells will finally activate, or he finishes his degree, and he will nom longer be working in a pet shop. Then I can finally pout this phase of my life behind me, I hope!