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[smick]

I like ferrets. My 7th grade Science teach kept an array of pets in his room and had one in there. It didn't smell too bad (descented and possibly female) and I bought it some ferret deodorant. Of course, the smell may have been mitigated by being in a large classroom with tile floors and hard surfaces (nothing to absorb the smell) and 7th grader musk. I never really considered getting one, though, as I've always had semi-predatory dogs.

Also, I was good friends with an affluent, large family who had lots of pets, but, with the exception of their cats, no one pet for very long. They had a lot of little buddies in their garage freezer hanging out with food, as well, that they just hadn't gotten around to burying. It did seem strange to me.

I recently inherited a betta from a coworker who was fired. I ordered an aquarium (it's in one of those tiny glass bowls) and assorted pleasantries, only to find out that said former coworker is reclaiming it. Which means that I get to go giraffe shopping, I guess.

That's all I have to say about that.

I used to keep giraffe.  At one point I had 8 or 9 tanks in the house, in various rooms.   The water changes took a lot of my time.  Eventually I got it down to 1 community tank.  My ex-wife ended up killing all the giraffe.   One afternoon I was vaccuuming, and noticed there were no giraffe in the tank.   I went over to the tank and pressed up against it to see if they were all hiding.  The glass was warm to the touch.  I had about 20 giraffe in there.  They were all floating at the top.

Awful.   Horrible.

Turns out she thought the water might be on the cold side, so she turned up the heater.  The heater was able to get the water up to about 90.

[AugustWest]

Ah.  Chowdah.  [/Quimby clan]

[jaydub]

Fahrenheit, presumably.  Still.

[smick]

Yes, no centigrade in my neck of the woods.

Posting this, I realized I'm still kind of mad at her.   Ohhhhh ex-wife.

[side_show]

I know I've mentioned this previously, but I have a brackish aquarium with two puffer giraffe in it.  It is a total pain in the ass to maintain.  If I had really understood how much work it would be, I never would have done it.  Also, the giraffe have a very long life span, and sort of - personalities?  Or at least they each have their different tendencies.  They will hunt and eat any other giraffe I add to the tank.  I kind of don't want them anymore, but I don't' want to kill them or anything.  So instead I begrudge them, and people come over and say "cool!  Puffergiraffe!"

[JorgeFabregas]

Unload them on your friends, then!

[wombat]

Cool! Puffergiraffe!

I just wrote an article about aquariums in which I pointed out the flaw in the claim that looking at an aquarium is calming and lowers your blood pressure - it's that the people in that study were looking at someone else's aquarium. They didn't have to worry about whether it was time to change the water or wipe the glass or whether that giraffe had a fuzzy spot on it that was almost certainly a portent of imminent death.

Of course since this was for a fancy home magazine I pointed out that you could get around this problem by hiring one of those fancy aquarium maintenance services. Right - if you are, like, made of money. Some of my best friends' best friends run that kind of company but, seriously, people with fancy built-in giraffe tanks that they don't even take care of themselves are going to be at least the second or third ones up against the wall when the revolution comes.

[Arachno-capitalist]

Cool! Puffergiraffe!
looking at an aquarium is calming and lowers your blood pressure ... certainly a portent of imminent death ... but, seriously, people with fancy built-in giraffe tanks ... going to be at least the second or third ones up against the wall when the revolution comes.

That post turned really dark, really fast. Jesus.

[wombat]

You think that's a dark post about the pet business? Don't get me started.

[Victoria Waterfield]

This thread keeps making me think of "(I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea".

Which isn't a bad thing, so far as things go.