Welcome to the zoo.

The zoo being my house, of course. I'm not quite sure how it happened, but yesterday morning we woke up with three pets in the house. However, by the time we went to bed yesterday evening, we had five pets in the house. In addition to the chinchilla, rabbit and snake, we now have a hamster named Smokey and a parakeet named George. It's kind of a blur, but I firmly blame the lazy workers at Meijers. We were at Meijers (which is a large department/grocery store here)and we were looking at the pets when I decided I just wanted to check out a hamster that looked particularly cute because my daughter was pining for a new hamster since Snoozer died. Anyway, I wasn't really thinking let's get a hamster but I wanted to check out the personality of the hamster we were looking at. Anyway, there was no one manning the pet department so I caught this one kid walking buy and told him I needed help. He said to pick up the red courtesy phone to get someone there, which I did. That phone rang like thirty times and no one bothered to pick up. So I walked over to where that same kid was leaning against a tower of boxes drinking a soda, talking to another kid stocking the dairy section.

"No one is picking up the phone," I said.

"Ah, man," he replied in an annoyed manner, "they're just being lazy. I'll go get someone."

I'm thinking as he walks away, I didn't see you doing anything to help me. I don't know how you could be calling someone else lazy. Anyway, after a couple of minutes he comes back and says he put in a call and someone should be there to help me. Well, I waited. I waited a long time. I waited so long I even picked up the red courtesy phone again just to see if that could speed things up a bit. It didn't. I saw that the keys for the animal cages were lying by the sink in the pet department and I asked my husband if he'd get upset if I opened the hamster cage myself. He said he didn't think that would be a good idea. So I searched down the boy that had been stocking the dairy section and grabbed him by the arm and led him back to the pet department and said, "I just need you to open the cage. I'd do it myself, but I don't want to get my husband all bothered."

So we get to the cages, he unlocks it and I get the hamster out and I told him he could leave the keys with me and I'd lock everything up again. He said OK. At this point, I was very annoyed and I was thinking, "I'm buying this damn hamster because I went to all this trouble to get it out of the cage." Anyway, as I locked up the cage and we started looking for a box to put the hamster in, the actual pet department boy comes running over saying, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but they've got me running all over."

I said, "Well, I took care of the situation myself. I just need you to write the price on the box."

As we left, I walked up to a manager and said, "You know, I'd like a discount on this hamster because I basically did everything myself to get it. I waited a long, long time for assistance, but it never came so I took matters into my own hands. I'm thinking lets take two dollars off the cost." And she said OK, go right ahead. So I did. The hamster ended up costing $7.99. I'm thinking I should have asked for at least three dollars off, now.

My husband said if I get that hamster, he's getting a parakeet, which he did, and that's how we ended up with two more pets. Now I think I made a mistake getting that hamster.