We Want A Guinea Pig

I had a customer come into the store today with her horde of children, potentially looking to get a new pet.

Originally the mother had told the kids that they were just there to 'look.'

But the kids immediately were like "We're getting another pet!"

As they had had a guinea pig...only it had died yesterday unexpectedly.

And apparently it traumatized the mother far more than the kids because they were all energetic about looking at new guinea pigs and had picked out the one they wanted before their mom had finished looking at the other animals we had in the store.

They'd even started gathering supplies and such to get another guinea pig.

Even telling me that they were ready to get their guinea pig.

Only, when I went to give the paperwork to the mother.

She was like "Oh, I'm not sure we're actually getting one today. We may get another animal instead. Like a leopard gecko!"

....

The kids were pretty set on a guinea pig though.

Only humoring the mom's attempts to get them more interested in the reptile.

She didn't want a pet that would 'die so quickly'

As they'd only had their guinea pig for like 9 months....which would have meant the guinea pig was just a year old...rather young for it to pass.

But under normal circumstances the guinea pigs live for like 5-7 years.

And leopard geckos can live like...ten years or so.

So it's not that much difference.

But I spent a good twenty minutes with the mom as she wiffled back and forth, showing her guinea pig things that could 'help' and what she would need if she wanted to get a leopard gecko instead.

I managed to break away for them to 'think on it.' and went on Lunch.

Which was a nice break because the kids were soooo excited that they were constantly talking over me and the mom as we were trying to have a conversation and the littlest one kept touching my leg to talk to me and gah.

Waaaay too much energy. Waaaay tooo much.

And so I was rather grateful when I got back from my lunch break to find that they'd left the store.

I figured they would be heading home to 'think it over' and 'decide what they really want' as their pet had just died yesterday. It wouldn't hurt them to spend some time grieving and such.

Didn't have that much luck though.

A couple of hours later, they came back into the store.

With the mother now saying "I wish we could get a cat, but I don't think they're quite ready for that one yet."

....Like you're never too young to have a cat.

But I couldn't really encourage them to go that direction because our cat adoptions are through the adoption groups only right now due to the pandemic. So if they wanted to get a cat, they wouldn't be getting it today because the adoption groups have to come in and do those.

Thankfully the mother decided to go with what the kids wanted the entire time, and got them their guinea pig.

Hopefully this one lives longer than the other one did. :S

-Sarnic Dirchi