Yes Even Crickets Are Included

Tis the Season of White Elephant Gifts.

Which means major headaches for the store customer wise.

Because we have a Policy of NOT SELLING to customers who want to buy an animal for the soul purpose of giving them away at those parties. 

Why?
Because we want animals to find forever homes where people actually want them.

If they're given away as a random present the chances are high that the animal won't have adequate care provided to it right away because the recipients weren't prepared to take on a pet....if they wanted to keep it anyways. 

So to avoid the hassel of stressing out people who don't want a sudden pet.
And to keep the animals safer from being tossed about in the white elephant game...

We don't sell them to people. 

And this time of year we tend to do a bit more homework to ensure that the animals being purchases aren't being bought for this reason.
(regrettably a few get past us....but we do our best.) 

It's just weird...that customers don't seem to get that it's a bad idea to get an animal for that reason.

Even ones we use for food.

Today I had a customer come in wanting to buy "A ton of crickets." 

To which I was like "Okay, how many is that?"

Because "a ton" could be Thirty crickets or it could be like 400. 

The customer was like "I need $20 worth because that's how much each White Elephant Gift needs to be for our party." 

Honestly...if the customer hadn't mentioned "white elephant" I probably would have bagged up them up no questions asked. Because people do come in and buy approximately 150 crickets often enough for their reptiles that I wouldn't have questioned it when asked to bag 'a ton of crickets.'

But they said White Elephant.

So I told them that we don't sell live animals for white elephant gifts.

And the customer just got a bit miffed about it.
Because like...the crickets are sold for food.

So why can't the customer buy them as a white elephant gift because wouldn't it be 'fun' to open up a bag of crickets! They're going to die anyways.

….but like there's a difference?

When they're sold as a food source then it's understood that they're going to die quick.

Sold as a gag gift?
What are you going to do with them after the gift was opened? I mean...unless the receiver happens to have a reptile that will eat them...the crickets would have been probably tossed in the garbage or tossed outside to freeze to death...and that's just...not right.

The customer wasn't happy.
Wanted to have a manager step in.
But the manager said "No." 
Because it's against policy to sell live Pets as White Elephant gifts even if they are little measly crickets used for food.

-Sarnic Dirchi