Monday, December 01, 2008

Holiday Shopping Ideas

I'm assuming the sales clerk burst out laughing as soon as we left the pet shop.

Wait, let me give a little background here.

My daughter's quest to get a hamster has become rather a public spectacle, having been mentioned here in a blog entry as well as in one of SourceGear's comic books.  Anyway, her birthday was this weekend, so it seemed like time.

The Champaign Petsmart is designated as "male hamsters only".  In retrospect, perhaps we should have gone there.  But so many people encouraged us to "buy local" that we decided to visit Sailfin Pet Shop, just down the street from SourceGear's offices.

In Sailfin's defense, I would like to say that they provided us with a good price and excellent service.  In this case, "excellent service" means that they kept a straight face when we asked if the hamster could be pregnant.

You see, Lydia wanted a white hamster.  No other color would do.  And there was only one white hamster in the store.  And it was a female.  So we bought it anyway, but not without asking the otherwise very helpful sales clerk if there was any possibility that "Spunky" could be pregnant.  With no facial expression at all, he looked at the hamster and said, "Yes, that is possible."

Eighteen hours later when our family's talk of the hamster abruptly switched to the plural, it became extremely clear that this sales clerk not only knew darn well that Spunky was knocked up, but he could probably tell at a glance that she was in early labor.  I mean seriously.  We brought the rodent home one afternoon and she was pushing out offspring the next morning.  The Sailfin guy does this for a living -- he had to know.

In contrast, I don't know anything about hamsters.  All I know is that if the current birth rate of one new generation every day continues, I will have hundreds of billions of these little tribbles by Christmas, so there will be plenty to share.

So, if any of you would like to bless the geek in your life with the gift of a hamster at the holidays, please let me know.  No charge, as long as you come to Champaign and pick up the rodent in person.

On the other hand, if you would prefer not to travel to Illinois just to pick up a five dollar furball, consider gifting one of Andy Brice's geek T-shirts instead.  They're nice shirts, the proceeds are going to charity, and they've gotta be less hassle than a hamster.