A Trip to the Zoo

Yesterday I was in a bad mood.

Let me start that again.

Yesterday I was in a FOUL mood. I was growling at everyone I talked to, which luckily was only 5 people the whole day. I don't get like that too often, lucky for all of you!

We had to run some errands in the evening, and all I wanted to do was be unconscious in my bed (after a dip in the hot tub, of course). Alas, we skipped from store to store, all over the city.

Then Colin wanted to go to "The Po". That's Roth language for Home Depot. I think we call it "The Po" because we go there so often, we don't want to waste our breath. Come to think of it, I think we should OWN half of the Po's shares by now.

I was not too happy about going to The Po, but I scowled and bared it. We went to the "Hot Tub Electrical Components" aisle, to which I exclaimed loudly "I am SO SICK of this aisle!!".

Unlike most trips, we were in and out within 8 minutes. GASP! I love the new self serve checkout, by the way.

So we are driving down the road and Colin sees that a new store "Petland" has opened. Conveniently, right next to The Po. So he drives into the parking lot and stops the car. I get out of the car, slam the door and head to the store, as I exclaim (rather loudly again), "This is gonna SUCK".

Colin said, "Well, at least with THAT attitude, you have nothing to lose".

ZING!

I was expecting a store reminiscent of Petcetera, ie: some fish in dirty cages that kill all the other fish in our tank because of their bacteria, some poor stinky cats, and a bunch of pet food.

I went in anyway. The first thing I see, was:

Three little boxer-terrier cross puppies gnawing on a little purple dinosaur toy. They each had a part of it in their chops, and were stretching it 3 different ways!

YEAH! Go puppies! RIP THE THING TO SHREDS! Let's hear you sing "I love you" now, you cocky purple dinosaur!

Next cage, there were 4 of these (the brown variety, some sort of schnauzer cross):

3 males and 1 female. You could easily tell because they put pink collars on the girls, and blue collars on the boys. The 3 males were CONSTANTLY attacking their female friend, and man, was she ever holding her own! She was NASTY! One would walk away and she'd chop her jaws right into it's butt! GO GIRL! I was on her side for sure. I have never seen 4 puppies so animated!

The next cage calmed me down. Good thing because I was acting like I was at a WWF game. I saw 3 calm, beautiful Golden Retrievers:

The cutest puppies in the world, hands down. I want them all. They fit in a stocking, don't they?

There were more puppies than these. Some poodles that were so curly that you couldn't tell where their head was, some pomeranian puppies that looked like a fuzzy popple. There were also a few cute cocker spanials. Unfortunately, my outlook on cockers has changed. My family gave my mom one for her birthday one year. After a diagnosis of a blood disorder, a disappearing garden, and a queen size blanket that we'd find pieces during "pooper scooping" time, the decision was to give her back to the breeder to find a new family, where she promptly ate all their steel wool.

Cute, but not the sharpest knives in the drawer.

This was our favorite cat at the store:

Don't let it's cuteness deceive you! It attacked your hand every time you got close. But it kept it's claws in, so it was more like a friendly hi-5.

Speaking of attacking hands...

Colin's pretty good at ticking off animals. He's not MEAN to them, he just knows instantly how to "press their buttons". Like this parrot, who tried to bite his finger, and then complain about it by squawking bloody murder until Colin backed away:

Since we have a large-ish fish tank, we are no strangers to the fish sections of the pet store. So we expected to see the same fish as in all the other stores. Au contraire! There were different kinds of lizards, this chameleon......and lots of fish we've never seen. Look at all this guy!

There were so many of them in the tank, and each one had its own personality. One just stood still with it's claws wide open, ready to pinch whatever came near. The smallest one would ram into the biggest ones and try to pick a fight! Why do small thing always try to pick fights with big things?

We must've watched these silent battles for 15 minutes before we decided it was time to leave, at which point I said "but, but, can we go look at the puppies one more time?"

I left that store with a beaming smile from ear to ear! Then I got in the car and began to eat my words.

Thanks Petland, for the trip to the zoo!

And thanks, Colin, for putting up with me, and not leaving me locked in one of those cages.