Pets at Home

The final remaining goldfish expired last week, so my daughter and I popped into Pets At Home on Saturday morning to pick up a couple of new ones.

“We’d like some goldfish please”

“No problem, does your tank have a filter” said the bloke with the little net in his hand.

Well, I didn’t know that there were different types of goldfish. Some for bowls and others suitable for tanks with filtration systems. We got the last lot at the fair, just before Soph had put an air rifle pellet into the pikey’s leg on the shooting gallery. Hopefully ours had been bowl fish rather than filter fish.

“No.” I answered unsuspectingly, “they are for a bowl”

“Sorry, I can’t sell you any” he retorted, “it’s company policy not to sell fish unless they are going to a tank with a filtration system.

“Oh, FFS” I thought, but wisely kept to myself. Two options then. Find a different assistant and give the correct answer or buy a tank with a filtration system. I went for the latter, it looks quite smart and when you added in the plants and rocks it set me back nearly a hundred quid. Went home and we set it up.

The instructions on the tank said you had to leave it twenty four hours before you put the fish in, so we returned to Pets at Home yesterday. This time I was ready for them.

“We’d like some goldfish please”

“No problem, does your tank have a filter” said a woman who would have had a net in her hand if I hadn’t collared her whilst she was fiddling with the gerbils.

I was a little worried that I might panic and blow it, but we’d been practicing in the car on the way over and I confidently confirmed that our tank did indeed have a filtration system.

“Excellent” she replied as I breathed a sigh of relief.

“And how long has the tank been set up for?”

I hadn’t been expecting this, but I knew the answer as I’d read the instruction booklet.

“Just over 24 hours”, I replied, with emphasis on the ‘just over’ bit.

“Sorry”, she said, “but we only sell our goldfish to homes where the tanks have been set up for at least a week.”

“Oh FFS!!” Only this time I didn’t just think it. Well I wasn’t going to go home empty handed again, so we had to tactically withdraw for ten minutes and pretend to look at the dog kennels until a different assistant appeared.

And so, for the third time…“We’d like some goldfish please”

“No problem, does your tank have a filter” replied a different woman who was just as well versed in company policy as her colleagues.

“Of course” I responded, trying to give the impression that I would be horrified at the prospect of anyone keeping a goldfish in anything less than the Killer Whale pool at Seaworld.

“Excellent” she replied, sticking to the script.

“And how long has the tank been set up for?”

“Just over a week”, I replied, a certain smug expression firmly on my chops.

“That’s fine”, she said, “what are you after?”

I pointed to a tank containing some really small goldfish. Not much bigger than whitebait really, although I kept that thought to myself as well. I was fairly confident by then that they would have a policy about dusting them in flour and deep frying them.

“We’ll have one of the orange ones please, one of the yellow ones and one of those see-through ones.”

“I’m afraid I can only sell you one at a time. You would need to come back in a week if you want a second one.”

It was my daughters turn for the FFS this time. I was beyond being surprised. If she had told me that I would have the fish transported by air ambulance I wouldn’t have batted an eyelid by now. I know when I’m beaten.

She took all my details on a form, stopping just short of getting a magistrate to verify my identity and we took the orange fish, no longer than an inch long, to the checkout where I paid the £1.22 necessary. I could probably have adopted a child with less fuss.