The Pet Shop Diaries

This piece is about the perils and routines of working in a small pet shop.

 

The Pet Shop Diaries

            Brandon is cleaning out hamster cages when I come in, so it must be a Monday.

We all come in after school.  Brandon, who goes to Grosse Pointe North, has co-op, so he gets to leave after fourth hour, around 12:30, and come in to the shop.  The reason he was hired was mostly because he could come in early.  He’s one of the newer kids so he still has a lot to learn.  I go to East Detroit, so I get out of school at 2:22, and I am the second kid to arrive.  As far as student staff goes, I’ve been working here the longest.  I am in the process of training Brandon, and I trained Mitch, who doesn’t get here until 3:30 because he goes to South Lake.  He’s a short, skinny guy, about five foot six, with sandy brown hair that is perpetually in his eyes.  He always wears some sort of baseball cap to work.  Mitch is right after me in the seniority line, so we both work every day; we’ve become pretty good friends, hanging out on Sundays, the only day the shop is closed.  The reason he was hired was because of his specialty: he raises Discus, a very sensitive and difficult fish to breed.  He is incredibly knowledgeable about aquaria and cichlids, but everything he knows about small animals and reptiles he learned from Stephanie and me.

Stephanie, our manager, is a petite, formidable woman with short black hair.  She began working at the shop when she was sixteen, and now she is in her fifties.  As part owner of the shop, Stephanie is the only manager; she writes orders and supervises employees.  We don’t have a dress code, we were told all that matters is comfort, but Stephanie never wears anything else but black tennis shoes, blue jeans, and a plain t-shirt that is either red or blue. A very professional and Christian woman, she is easy to get along with, but she rules us, the teenage staffers, with an iron fist.  She’s never mean or bossy, but intimidates you into working hard.  You see, when Stephanie is around, you constantly have to be busy.  If you are in the backroom of the store where all of us employees like to stand around and chat, especially on Mondays when we catch up on weekend gossip, then you must be doing, or at least look like you are doing, something constructive.  Why?  For the simple fact that if you aren’t doing something, Stephanie will reassign you to go do something far more physically strenuous in the front of the store, with no one to talk to.

There are several ways one can be “busy” in the backroom while chatting.  One, you can sweep, which can take up a good amount of time if you do a thorough job.  Two, you can clean any animals that are left from the morning, since Monday is cleaning day.  Brandon usually gets this easy job, because he is the first one to arrive after school for the afternoon shift.  Three, you can clean out the crickets’ terrariums, which is very time consuming, while also kind of gritty and grimy.  The last and least favored option is to wait on customers.  At best, our customers are cordial; however, most of them are also extremely needy because Grosse Pointe Woods is an affluent area.  I think my boss Joe, the owner of the shop, said it best last week: “Rich people can’t do s**t for themselves.  One of my richest clients called me once asking me to make a trip out to her house because a plant came of the gravel in her aquarium.  When I told her all she had to do was stick her hand in the tank and shove it back down into the gravel, she was like, ‘Eww, I’m not doing that!  What do you think I pay you for?’”

Today Mitch got the dreaded task of dealing with the rich clientele.  He isn’t in the backroom the whole time, but he pops in and out of the conversation when he comes back to get feeders.  This causes an interesting phenomenon: a strange habit of leaving long pauses before we answer each other in a conversation.

This phenomenon is much like what happens on instant messaging when one person is talking to someone who is browsing the Internet or juggling another task.  They carry on a normal conversation, but the timestamps on each reply are at least one minute apart.  The only thing that is different about the “counting phenomenon,” as I have coined it, is that this happens in person.

It starts when Mitch comes back to get feeders and I am in the backroom, cleaning crickets.

Mitch needs to get six-dozen superworms for a customer.

He gets down the container they are held in, opens a bag and I ask, “What did you do this weekend?”

He looks down and puts the superworms in the bag, one by one.  A minute passes. 

Normal people would have repeated the question, thinking Mitch didn’t hear, but I wait.  Mitch looks up after about 30 seconds.  “Twenty-six.  Oh, I hung with Jon, played some video games.  What about you?” 

He looks back down and continues putting the worms in the bag, one by one.  “Oh, I…”  I stop.

A beat passes.  Mitch starts at a whisper and increases volume, “Thirty-four, thirty-five, thirty-six.” 

            “I hung out with Sarah, went to the movies.  You have gotta see this movie, it’s f*****g awesome,” I say.

            Mitch nods and looks back down.  A beat passes.  “Oh yeah?  What movie is that?”  he asks.

            A minute passes.  “The Forgotten,” I say.

Mitch counts aloud, “Seventy-one, seventy-two…” He throws a few more worms in the bag for good measure, grabs the bag forcefully, and begins to tie it.

“Oh yeah, I heard that was good.  We should go see a movie this weekend with Sarah and that girl Michelle.  She was cool.”

Mitch grins, finishes tying the bag and goes back out front.

 

The crickets are here, so it must be a Tuesday.

“Cricket taper...” I knew the voice. Mitch must have just come in.

 “What did you call me b***h?” I grab the bread knife I’d been using to cut the tape as I sealed cricket boxes.  (They have to be sealed at every edge and corner if they aren’t being sold or released into our tanks because the crickets can eventually chew through the cardboard boxes they are shipped in.)  I wield the knife in an aggressive manner, and Mitch’s eyes get wide.

            “Whoa, killer,” he says, backing away.

            “You wanna take this outside?” I say, pushing him into the back room, still firmly grasping my bread knife.

            “No, but I wanna take your mom out back...” Mitch laughs.

            Brandon needn’t know what the situation is. He automatically turns around from the table and cheers, “DAAAAANG!”

            “I’ve trained you guys too well,” I say.  Then I smirk at my sudden genius.            “Mitch, Mitch, bo b***h, banana fanna, fo fitch,” I taunt as I laugh manically.              As Mitch pouts, Brandon giggles.

            “You guys suck,” Mitch sulks.

            Brandon and I laugh hysterically as Mitch, downcast, starts pouring a box of crickets into a release bag. 

            When crickets are released, we take a small cardboard box of a thousand crickets, cut open the box, and quickly flip it over into a trash bag.  You can’t just take the box and dump it directly into the ten gallon tank the crickets are going into because the box is full of cricket feces, which looks like dark grains of sand but smells like a rotting corpse.  The box contains the crickets, some egg carton that they climb on, wedges of potato that they eat, and a bunch of cricket waste.  To keep the gross stuff from going into the clean tank, we initially dump the contents of the box into a trash bag.  Then we shake the crickets off the carton and pick out the potato wedges, so all that is left in the bag is the crickets and their waste.  Then we take that bag and dump it into a pitcher, put the pitcher in the tank and let the crickets crawl out, leaving all the gross stuff behind.  It’s actually an art, because if you aren’t good at it you can lose a lot of crickets, and then they hide under things in the dark backroom and chirp all the time until they die.  On this particular day, Mitch is complaining because Ferlitos has their bread in the area where we usually release crickets, taking up a ton of table space.  Ferlitos is the Italian restaurant next door, and they don’t open until four o’clock, so if their bread delivery comes before then, the delivery guys put it in our backroom.  Sometimes a cricket will get away and hop onto the bread.  We tell ourselves that it isn’t really that gross because the bread is in sealed plastic bags, but I don’t think Ferlitos’s patrons would be too happy to know their dinner rolls spent a few hours next to an aquarium full of crickets.

Brandon and I are still laughing about taunting Mitch until my manager walks in the backroom, then we pretend to look like we’re really working. I grab a pair of scissors and start cutting a zucchini while Brandon starts wiping a tank with a towel. We are so good at this. I take the zucchini pieces and shove them randomly in birdcages while addressing my manager.

            “Steph, do you know why this bird is back here?” I already know the answer to the question, but I’ve found that if you pretend to exhibit interest in something and look busy, there’s at least a fifty percent chance Stephanie won’t find something constructive and physically draining for you to do.

            “Yeah, his mate was beating him up,” she answers.  “Can somebody go up front?”

I look at Mitch, who looks at Brandon, who looks back at me. Brandon and Mitch are successfully looking busy, and my manager glances back at me. Damn it. That means I have to go.  Damn customers, always wanting things.

            At the counter, a regular wants crickets: two-dozen large, one-dozen small.  I walk back to the backroom where Brandon laughs as I start to count. Mitch smirks evilly.

            “Forty-eight, ninety-two, forty-seven, twelve...” Mitch counts.

            “God damn it, Mitch, I lost count...now I gotta start all over,” I say.

            “Mission accomplished,” he snorts.

            F**k, I think to myself. Was it one-dozen large and two-dozen small or two-dozen large and one-dozen small? As a response to my inner question, I smack Mitch.

            “Oww!”

            “Now I gotta go ask him again! It’s all your fault.”  I go up front and ask him again. Two-dozen large, one-dozen small...but there’s another lady at the counter and she just wants a dozen small.

            “Two-dozen large, one-dozen small, another dozen small...” I chant under my breath on the way back to the back of the store.

            “Get me a dozen small, b***h,” I huff at Mitch.

            “Get it yourself,” he shoots back, but then he walks over and starts counting because Stephanie just entered the back room. As a way to spite me, he counts aloud.

            “One, two, three, four...” Mitch chants.

            “Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen...Mitch, shut the f**k up!”

            He counts louder. “SEVEN, EIGHT, NINE...”

            I count in French. “Vingt-et-un, vingt-deux, vingt-trois...”

            He counts in Spanish, but I prevail and make it to twenty-four before he makes it to twelve.

            We call these counting wars.

 

My manager Stephanie isn’t here, so it must be a Wednesday.

It’s just the boys and me on Wednesdays.  Jon and Joe cover the afternoon shift with me, and I love it because Joe doesn’t really make us do anything except “keep the customers away” while he does water changes on his saltwater aquariums.  This is great fun for Jon and me because if there aren’t any customers we can just mess around and play with animals.

I am in the backroom counting out some earthworms for a customer when I hear Jon.  “Target is about eight clicks,” he whispers. “I am taking the shot.”  Before I have time to react, I feel a cold jet of water on the back of my neck.  Jon has taken one of the spray bottles that we use to mist the reptile cages and started a water war with it.

Jon is not a high school kid like most of the staff.  He’s twenty-two, but he behaves like he’s twelve.  When he first started here, he had an Afro of blonde curly hair, and I was his trainer.  I knew he was going to be an interesting guy to work with, and my intuition was right.

“M**********r!  Ah!  That’s cold!”  I yelp.  “I am gonna get you for that, when you are least expecting it.”  He laughs as I tie the bag and head up front to ring up the customer.

Later Jon peeps around the corner of the backroom while I am working in the giant tub-like sink, using the hose attachment on the facet to give a guinea pig a bath.  The pig squeaks nervously when I yelp as Jon squirts cold water on my arm. 

“That’s twice, and you still haven’t got me,” he taunts.

“Come on, Jon.  F**k.  I am busy here,” I say seriously, lulling him into a false sense of safety.

“Okay, okay.  Truce?” he asks.

“Yes.  Truce,” I nod.  But just as he comes forward to shake my hand, I put my finger over the hose and violently spray the front of his pants.  Jon screams like a little girl.

“Ha!  Who’s my b***h?” I laugh.

“Oh, you are a b***h,” he sulks.

“Now, that’s a truce.  I don’t get mad, I get even,” I jeer.

 

            Joe is an awesome guy, though he is pretty intimidating before you get to know him.  He has a very serious face, with prematurely grey hair, since he is only in his late 30s.  He’s short, but incredibly strong and athletic.  Joe’s dad, Lou, started the business, and Joe has been working here since he was eight years old.  Joe is a professional scuba diver (a PADI Dive Master to be exact), and he goes on exhausting diving excursions whenever he gets a chance.  His favorite animal by far is the South American stingray.  He built a 480-gallon pond in the front of the store where he could keep leopoldis and motoros, two species of the freshwater ray.

Wednesday is a catch up day for Joe.  He does aquarium maintenance on the side, so he’s always away from the shop.  On Wednesdays he does maintenance on all the tanks we have, does some bookkeeping, and usually floods the store.  This happens because he is pretty forgetful.  Joe uses 55-gallon trashcans on circular dollies, so he can wheel them around and change water with them.  Since they take about five minutes to fill, it is easy to walk off to do something else, forget they are filling up with water in the backroom, and let them overflow.  If we are too busy to hear the initial splashing of the water on the floor, we sometimes don’t notice until a wave of water creeps down the aisle where we are.

Today has been a pretty quiet day with minimal customers and no floods, but Jon and I know that something is going to happen before the shift is over.  As smart and athletic as he is, Joe is incredibly clumsy, so we are just waiting for a mishap to occur.  While Jon and I are behind the counter reading a book about tarantulas, we hear Joe grunting like he is lifting something heavy.  We look at each other questionably, and then we hear Joe start to curse.  Finally, he cries out.

“Can somebody HELP?”  Joe yells from the back of the store.  Jon and I duck out from behind the counter and run down the fish tank aisle.  Joe wiggles violently, and as soon as we get to him, we realize what he has done.

“I was trying to reach the damn cord for this filter’s power supply,” he gasps, “now I can’t get my arm out of here!”  Joe’s arm is wedged between the 300-gallon saltwater aquarium and the doorframe that leads into the backroom.  He is standing on a step stool, red-faced from trying to budge the unmovable tank and doorframe.

“Well, we obviously can’t move the tank,” Jon says, laughing.  I giggle at Joe’s predicament.

“Come on guys.  I’m starting to lose feeling in my fingers!”  Joe is getting pissed instead of panicked.  Jon splashes saltwater from the aquarium on Joe’s arm.

“There, maybe getting it wet will make it easier to pull it out,” Jon says.  He goes behind Joe and tries to pull him out.  Joe yelps.

“No, but that might be the right idea,” I say, excited at my resourcefulness.  I run past Joe into the backroom and rummage through Joe’s toolbox.  I finally find what I am looking for.

“We just have to lube it up,” I say, squirting WD-40 onto Joe’s trapped arm.  “Wiggle it around, and then Jon can pull you out.”

Joe moves his arm.  “It’s working!” he gasps.  Jon helps him pull his arm free, and Joe starts massaging feeling back into his hand. 

Exasperated, we all go into the backroom.  Joe goes over to the freezer, reaches in and takes out a frozen hamster wrapped in a plastic bag, using it like an icepack on his swollen arm.  He looks at us very seriously and says, “Thanks, you guys.  But just know that if you ever tell anyone about this you’re fired.”

 

There’s a tower of boxes in the middle aisle, so it must be a Thursday.

Thursday is stock day, so Jon and Holly from the morning shift stay an hour later to help. 

Holly has been working at Lou’s Pet Shop for about eight years.  She’s in her late fifties, but she still thinks she’s twenty-five.  She always wears a t-shirt that has something to do with animals and tight jeans that she admits come from the Salvation Army.  She lives with her daughter who is nineteen and has three kids of her own.  Holly lives in a small bungalow in Detroit, about a half-mile from my house, and throughout her whole house there’s an animal in every corner.  She’s really into reptiles, especially iguanas, and she does pet sitting on the side to afford food for her, her daughter, and her grandkids.  She’s a really nice lady, but a bit forward, and a little strange from doing way too much acid in the sixties.

“Did you see that a*****e I just waited on?” Holly whispers to me while we take turns marking a case of reptile light bulbs.  “He was bitching about the amount of money it was going to take to buy his son a lizard for his birthday, so he decided not to buy any of the lighting the iguana needs.  When he pulled out his wallet to pay, he must have had five hundred in cash.  I don’t make that in two weeks and I can still afford to keep body and soul together and take care of my iguanas right.  It pisses me off to sell f***s like that an animal.”

 

Stephanie and I get a chance to chat on Thursdays while she checks in the stock and I put it away.  I am by far Stephanie’s favorite employee, which she shows through word and deed.  I am the only one she trusts when it comes to suggestions about new products, and the one she leaves in charge when she or Joe aren’t in the shop.  I am also the only one with whom she really talks about her life outside of the shop.

“Did you look at American Idol last night?” Stephanie asks me as I tag a box of hamster food.

“Yeah, I watched it with my mom.  I hate that blonde country girl.  She’s so bad,” I say.

Stephanie nods.  “Yeah, I don’t care for her much.  I like Jennifer Hudson, I hope she wins.”

“Yeah.  I think it is a pretty unfair contest though.  She probably won’t win because she doesn’t weigh a hundred pounds,” I scoff.

“Yeah, I think they comment way too much on what the people look like.  I think, ‘Who cares?’ As long as they can sing, that’s what they should be judged on,” she says.

“I agree.  Did you get a chance to watch that Animal Planet special on Tuesday?” I ask.

“No, I did tape it though.  I’m just so busy with taking care of the house and my mom that I don’t really get a chance to see much on television,” Stephanie says, sighing.  “I tape things and watch them before I go to bed.  Plus I have late church on Tuesday, so I really don’t get much time for myself.”

“I guess you gotta take care of business before you can relax,” I say.

“Definitely.  You have to be organized in life, or you won’t get anything accomplished,” Stephanie says, nodding.

From talking to Stephanie I knew how much she hated it when her life deviated from her set routine, and thinking about it, I realized how I could never stand if my life was ruled by one.

 

Mitch and Brandon come in at 3:30 to help finish with the stock, and that is when the real fun begins.  Stephanie has usually finished checking in the stock by then, so she goes behind the counter to start writing another order.  Because of this, Brandon, Mitch, and I can run amok.

I feel a knock on my back and realize I’ve been tagged.  Brandon stands behind me, blowing on his pricing gun like he’s a real gunslinger.  I grab my shirt and pull off the tag, checking to see my price.

“Ninety-nine cents?  Are you serious?  You know all of this is worth a whole lot more than ninety-nine cents,” I smirk as I fake a fly girl ghetto accent.

“Oh really?” Brandon sneers.  “How much do you usually charge?”

“Oh snap!” Mitch laughs from the end of the aisle.

I angrily turn the dial on my tag gun, changing the price from $5.99 to $0.01.  I turn and go around to the next aisle where Mitch was headed.  I reach down into a box, looking defeated, like I’m actually going to get back to work.  When Mitch gets close enough, I snap the tag gun and stick a one-cent tag on the crotch of his jeans.

“That’s how much that is worth,” I say while walking away, victorious.

 

Customers are everywhere, so it must be a Friday.

            People come to Lou’s because we are extremely knowledgeable about the animals and products we sell.  Being a small shop, some are surprised that we stay in business with a Pet Supplies Plus right down the street, but the shop actually rakes in a lot of cash.  Lou’s not only offers more interaction with the animals than a bigger place (I can’t even tell you how many times a day I have to take the bunnies out of their cage because somebody wants to pet them), but also the opportunity to ask us questions about the animals.  Instead of having to guess what medication they need to treat their fish’s ailment or what collar is best for controlling an unruly Labrador, a customer can ask us.  They can tell me that their fish has been acting lethargic and it looks like it has grains of salt on its fins, and I can tell them that the fish has ick and it needs a five-day treatment of Quick Cure; I can also tell them to make sure that they take the activated carbon out of their filter or the medication won’t work.  They can tell Stephanie about their Labrador that pulls them down the block when they walk it, and she can suggest they buy a Gentle Leader, a harness that goes around the dog’s muzzle and helps control them because their muzzle is extremely sensitive.

             I have worked with some customers for an hour, taking them through the store, giving them the spiel about each animal we carry and helping them decide what the best pet is for them.  When they finally do decide, we help them put together all the supplies they will need to take the best possible care of the animal.  If they try to cut corners by not buying the things they need, we tell them what the repercussions will be for the animal.  Many of things we sell are a lot cheaper at a larger pet store or the supermarket, but I think people, especially rich people, really love individualized attention. 

When I train the new kids, I try to stress this fact to them because it takes years to learn all they need to know about the animals and products we sell; being polite and making the customers feel like you will get them the answers they need no matter who you have to ask is what people really respond to.  I knew absolutely nothing when I started here, but Stephanie later told me that she hired me because she could tell I really knew how to make people feel important.  All I knew was that I loved animals and wanted to be able to play with them all day.  Looking back on what I knew before and what I know now, I’m glad I got this opportunity to learn as much as I can about animal care. I’m thankful that Stephanie had faith in my abilities back when I was the new kid who was in over her head, dropping bags of fish, leaving myself soaked and ten goldfish on the tile floor, all of them flapping around and giving me a look that said, “I think you’re completely incompetent, and I only have a ten-second memory!”

 

            Friday is payday and we get a lot of regulars: these are the people who you know by what they buy.  I have a customer who comes in every week and buys the same amount of cat litter and cat food.  Other regulars walk up to the counter and I know exactly what kind of feeders and how many that they need, much like a waitress who waits on someone who says, “I’ll have the usual.”

One regular that I don’t like waiting on is Amanda.  She has a Corn Snake.  Snakes usually eat once a week and most people buy live mice or frozen mice, or sometimes, live or frozen hamsters if they’re cheap.  Amanda’s snake is too finicky to eat a frozen mouse, but too afraid of a live mouse, so Amanda buys freshly-bopped, or pre-killed, mice.  Freshly-bopped is just what it sounds like: you take a live mouse, put it in a plastic bag, and whack it really hard against a tabletop or a wall, killing it.  I don’t like waiting on Amanda because it’s hard for me to whack a mouse, unless I am having a particularly bad day and I imagine that the mouse is my ex-boyfriend.  I usually pawn Amanda off on someone else.  Today Mitch got her.

I am in the backroom counting wax worms when Mitch comes back and shuts the door.  This means only one thing: he’s going to do something he doesn’t want any customer to see.  He already has the mouse in a plastic bag.  As he raises his arm to whack it, I stop counting, wince, and watch.  Mitch slams the bag against the table and then screams.

“F*****G NASTY!” he yells.  He turns toward me with mouse blood splattered all over his face.  The corner of the bag had exploded since he didn’t get all the air out of the bag before he hit it against the table.  The mouse hit the table and then flew against the back door, and Mitch got sprayed with blood in the process.

“F*****g Amanda,” he mutters, walking into the bathroom to wash his face.  I can’t help but giggle.

 

I’m working from open to close, so it must be a Saturday.

Since I arrived last today, I get stuck with the undesirable task of feeding the reptiles.  This is more undesirable then feeding small animals or birds because the reptiles are in the front of the store, so not only do I have to do a lot of running back and forth, I also get interrupted every five minutes from what I am doing to help a customer, so the overall process takes a lot longer. 

Usually on Saturday we do minimal maintenance on the animals.  We just make sure they have enough food until Monday, when all of them will get their tanks cleaned.  Since snakes only need to eat once a week, we usually feed them on Wednesday, the slowest day, but Jon tells me that the adult Ball Python didn’t want to eat on Wednesday because she was shedding.  When snakes shed, they have a grayer appearance overall, almost like they have been covered in plastic wrap.  Snakes are very moody and nervous during this time because their eye caps, the scales that cover their eyes, are also cloudy: the snake can’t see so it doesn’t even try to hunt, and it is more apt to bite you because it can’t see what the hell you are doing.  When I open the Ball Python’s cage, I am hoping she hasn’t shed yet where I won’t have to waste time feeding her, but as my luck would have it, a crispy snake skin is basking under the heat lamp, and the snake is slithering around, a sign that she’s hungry and on the prowl.

I am training the new kid Rob today, so he is shadowing me while I do the reptiles.  I just finished explaining the whole snake shedding and feeding thing to him. He, unlike me, is excited that the Ball Python has shed because he wants to watch the snake eat a mouse.

“It’s not really that big of a deal,” I say.  “She’s extra hungry right now, so it is super important that before you handle a snake like this, a snake that has just shed, to make sure that you don’t smell like mice.”

“So what you are saying is if I just finished cleaning mice cages not to stick my hand near a hungry snake?  Don’t worry, I got it,” he says, laughing.

“Okay, good,” I say seriously, “ because you don’t want to get bit, especially by a constrictor like this, because their fangs are in the back of their mouth, so it’s a lot harder to get them off of you without damaging them.”

“Okay.  Good to know,” he says, nodding.

“Alright, let’s get her fed,” I say.  I reach in the tank carefully, testing the waters.  If the snake is hungry enough to bite me, she’ll lunge at my hand when she feels me touch her.  I stroke her tail gently, and she turns toward my hand, slowly, non-aggressively.  She is a beautiful snake, with copper scales, black patterning, and a soft, white underbelly.  A year and a half old, she was given to us by a customer who thought she got too big.  She is almost grown at five feet long, but she can grow up to seven feet in the right environment.  Like so many reptiles, this snake was bought as a passing fancy and abandoned as soon as it became apparent that she actually needed money and time invested in her care.  I can’t even count how many run-over iguanas and water dragons with metabolic bone disease from poor nutrition that I have seen brought in by people who found them on the side of the road, and I have only been working here for three years. I also can’t count how many people I have stopped from buying a turtle or an iguana when I told them that their proper care would be expensive and time consuming.  People want something exotic, but they don’t want it to affect their non-exotic lifestyles.

Rob is holding the screen lid of the Ball Python’s tank as I gingerly lift her out with both hands.  I hold her tail in my left hand and her head is slithering up my right arm.  “She sure looks hungry,” Rob says.  Just as we turn to walk down the aisle to the backroom, the front door bell dings, and a screaming little girl followed by her father come in and turn the corner.  I feel the snake tense up at the loud sound, and the next thing I know the snake is obstructing my vision, its bottom jaw covering my right eye while it grinds its back-jaw fangs into my forehead, just below my hairline.

“F**K!” I scream.

“Oh my god,” Rob gasps.

“Hey, watch your language! I got a kid here,” the father yells.  “What kind of place is this?”

I’m in pain, but not in too much pain to be pissed off.  I am facing away from the man, so I slowly turn around, snake still embedded in my forehead.  I push the snake’s body away from my left eye, and I shoot the man a glare.  “I’m sorry, it’s just a little hard for me to think of pleasantries while I have inch-long fangs scraping against my skull,” I say wincing, but trying to keep my facetious demeanor.

“Oh good god,” the father says apologetically.

“Oh, what do I do?” Rob says, panicking.

“DON’T touch her.  Go get Jon or Steph,” I say to Rob.  The snake is gnawing at my head, causing my eyes to tear, and she’s opening her jaw wider.  She’s trying to swallow me.  Little does she know, I’m a little too big to be viable prey.

The thing that pisses me off the most is the little girl didn’t even hear me swear, and she doesn’t even notice the snake on my face because she is too busy banging on fish aquariums, scaring the fish.

Stephanie comes running down the aisle with a pencil, followed by Rob clutching a wad of paper towels.  “Wow, he wasn’t exaggerating,” Stephanie says, surveying the situation.

“Ow!” I yelp as she slides the pencil between my forehead and the snake, hooking the pencil behind its back fangs and pushing them forward.  Steph takes her free hand and pulls the snake’s fangs out of my head slowly, holding the snake behind the head so it can’t bite anyone else.  Rob hands me the paper towel, and I blot the trickle of blood from my forehead.  I catch my reflection in an aquarium and see two perfect holes in my forehead.

“It kinda looks like a vampire bit me in the face,” I say, laughing.

Stephanie looks down at the Ball Python hissing in her hands.  “What a naughty snake you are!” she says.  Rob shakes his head and laughs along with us, not quite understanding what’s so funny.  He will in time.

We all head down the aisle as the little girl finally notices the snake.  “Look daddy!  Look!  A snake,” she says giddily.  The father looks at me and shakes his head, and I smile.

When I get home from work my mom asks how my day was.  I tell her the story about the snake and she has the same reaction as she examines the fang marks in my face.  She shakes her head, and I just smile.

I love my job.

Reviews

[alternative_be]

Lovely story. Do you really work in a pet shop or did you make it up?
We've got discus and cyclid fish at home, so I'm accustomed to strange wormy creatures and all sort of creepy crawlies! Good luck with the pet shop's neighbours!
Please keep us posted!