There you are, standing before a pet of some kind. It's cute and seems small and harmless. It's one of those small pets that don't look like they'd take too much to care for. Oh, and look at that price! Well, under $10 for a cute little pet? How can you go wrong?Let me tell you the ways...
Almost two years ago, Melanie and I took our then nine-year-old niece Britany to the flea market. We walked around and didn't see a whole lot that deserved purchasing. We had set a limit of about $10 a person. As we walked down one of the aisles of this outdoor flea market, Britany took off running towards one booth in particular. It didn't take long to see what piqued her interest: Animals.
Snakes, turtles, and all sorts of other critters were for sale from this gentleman, who reminded me of the Crocodile Hunter. He seemed to be well versed in the care required of each animal, and seemed to be generally concerned with the welfare of the animals. He also seemed very interested in supporting Britany's desire to have a turtle. In all honesty, it didn't take us long to make the decision. Since our landlord won't allow bigger animals, having smaller ones seems to be only fair.
I did what I felt I should do as a responsible adult. I asked the man profiting from the sale all the questions I felt needed to be answered. As a naive idiot, I took what he said for truth. He made it sound like the turtle was quite easy to care for, which I assumed cheap. That day, I spent $10. To date, the current habitat has cost about $300, and she's already nearly outgrown it. Also, there are so many things about turtle care that I had no idea about, such as UV lamps, heat requirements, lifespan, and DAMN they are dirty.
Flash forward to yesterday. We were at the pet store, purchasing more supplies for aforementioned turtle when we happened upon some cute little fuzzy critters. When I saw the price tag of $2.50 for these little colorful mice, I figured "what's the harm?" I should have examined the contents of my basket more closely, but you know what they say about hindsight. After pricing out a habitat and supplies for two mice, we paid for our order and took our new cute critters home. I set up the house for them really easily and everything seemed pretty awesome. I thought: "Wow! We got lucky here... I remember that turtle..." We even decided to go back out and pick up another mouse. The theory was that there's three of us living here, so we can each have our own mouse.
We took home an albino mouse that's twice the size of the other two. We knew that the two we originally bought may have been males, and that the new one was a female, but we thought "what harm would it be to have some baby mice in the future?"
This is exactly why I titled this post "Pet Fairy". I need a little fairy to pop up next to me whenever I'm about to purchase a new pet, and whisper the facts and reality of the situation into my ear. I did not know that female mice can pretty much be fair game for mating every few days. I also didn't know that when you cage a male and female together, the female can have an average of one litter every month with about 6-8 "pups" each litter. So while we were thinking, "Aww! How cute, the little mice are getting to know the new one." What we were actually seeing was the courting instincts of the male mouse. As they were caged overnight, there's no way of knowing if either of the males "got lucky". We'll know in a month!
So yes, if there is such a thing as a Pet Fairy... please, save me next time.
