In a Bowl

It was the weirdest thing.
I had a customer come into the store today.
Bringing me a feeder goldfish in a bowl....
Which made me slightly irritated. as Fish in a bowl meant that wanted to return the fish.
But with our feeder goldfish...we have a no return policy because they're meant to be used as a food source.
If it was any other fish, then so long as it was within the time frame of our return policy, I would happily return it.

But this was a customer I recognized.
Having helped her fish out the goldfish in the first place.
-Time moves so weird at work, she said it was yesterday, but I halfway think it was the day before yesterday.
In any case, she was bringing back this goldfish (which she'd bought as a pet not to use as a food source for another animal.) Because she noticed that it had a 'hole in it's head' which is usually a sign of disease. At first glance, yes I could see that there seemed to be a hole in the gill area.
So she was wanting to exchange it out for a different one.

To which...honestly it should have been a 'you bought it, you deal with it' sort of thing.
But since the fish was alive, and otherwise appeared healthy.
I exchanged out the fish for her. Since she just wanted another one. It was easy enough to catch one Large goldfish and exchange it for another.

-Though looking closer at the fish later (as I was placing it in our tank where we treat sick fish) It almost looked like it was just discoloration and not an actual hole, though I can't be sure.

However, I had another problem to deal with with her, in that she was concerned that since one of the goldfish had this disease, all the other ones would get it and get her tank sick.

-It's a high possibility. Feeder goldfish aren't always the healthiest. There's always a slight risk even using them as a food source for other animals in that they could get the animal sick.
But overall there's no real concern for it.

So I told her that this was the first case I'd seen in the goldfish.

But honestly...I had no idea if it would end up happening to the other fish. I would assume not. But since we'd just gotten in a shipment of goldfish yesterday....it could be that this particular batch would end up getting it.
I doubt it would happen. But there's always that chance.
*shakes head*

Still. She left a happy camper with her new fish.
And I thought that was that.

Only for a couple of hours later,
For me to look up.
And see yet a different customer (one I hadn't helped yesterday)
Walking towards me with a feeder goldfish in a bowl.

lol I literally thought. "Not again!"
Because yes, that's what she wanted to do.
She wanted to exchange out this goldfish.
Not because it was sick or anything.
But because the fish was being a bully to all her other fish and she wanted to get one that was more 'mellow.'
Since my manager happened to be standing next to me this time around, I turned to them to get their opinion, because again, we're not supposed to be returning feeder goldfish as we have no guarantee on them.
The manager decided that it was alright to go ahead and exchange the fish.

lol. So the customer spent a good two or three minutes staring at our tanks of fish so she could get one that 'is mellow'
And as soon as I fished out that one, she too left a happy camper with her new fish.

*shakes head*
I'm actually surprised I didn't have the same thing happen again.
Because usually these sort of trends -where different customers have similar needs- usually happens in threes.

-Sarnic Dirchi