Monday, June 30, 2008

Suzie 2

My brother Joe and his wife Liza have two dogs; Lucas and Suzie. They're really good pet owners. They treat their dogs way better than I treated mine (before I pawned them off to my wonderful mother-in-law who was nice enough to take them when we moved).

I was kind of happy that after I arrived in Singapore, I was living animal free for the first time in about 11 years. Not anymore.

There was no full frontal assault. Jack and Melissa started on me slowly. They played the guilt card, they smiled, they frowned. Our airfreight arrived and we'd hardly packed any more toys in it. Jack was depressed. He missed his dogs, he had no toys, yada yada...we got a gerbil.

Of course, you don't just buy a gerbil...you buy a two story gerbil house, a water bottle, bedding, food, blah blah. BLAM! $100 gone.

It was an interesting purchase as well. While we've seen a lot of pet supply stores, we've haven't seen any that sell actual pets. Jack and Melissa walked into one of the stores on Saturday afternoon and Jack decided to take matters into his own hands. He was very mature about it. He walked up to the counter himself and asked the clerk, "Excuse me, where could I buy a gerbil around here?"

The lady behind the counter told him to follow her to the other side of the counter and pulled out a box of young gerbils from behind the counter. We were told that the gerbil would be $25 but they could only accept cash. We were able to pay with plastic for everything else, so I'm thinking we just bought a black market rodent. Hopefully the Singaporean police don't read this blog. I'd hate for Jack to get caned.

We were told it's a girl gerbil, so Melissa and Jack decided on Suzie for a name.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Interesting that the gerbil has a long tail... must be a native. I guess Jack will have to teach it English, or, he will have to learn Malay.

And, that's probably a way to get mom NOT to visit. She doesn't like rodents-- especially those with long tails!

Do you think someone will be around to gerbil-sit when you are traveling next summer?

Liza said...

aww shucks. thanks for the shout-out. Lucas and Susie are my 85 and 30 lb. gerbils and I love em to death. Tell Jack congratulations and what's his new pet's name?

Anonymous said...

I hate to break it to you man, but I think you just bought a $25 rat...

Anonymous said...

"...pulled out a box of young gerbils from behind the counter."

I'm glad Richard Gere wasn't scheduled to work that day.

Matt said...

The more I look at this think, the more I think it's just a mouse.