A pet store owner in Britain has been sentenced to home confinement during evening hours after selling a pet-in this case, a goldfish-to an unaccompanied 15-year-old boy. (You have to be 16 before you are allowed to buy a pet without an adult.) The woman claims she thought the lad appeared to be of legal age, but this isn't the first time she's been in trouble with the law.
Officials sent the boy in to make a test purchase after receiving a complaint the shop had sold a gerbil to a 14-year-old girl with learning difficulties, who later dropped it into a cup of coffee.Investigators also discovered a distressed cockatiel in the shop, which, "when examined, was found to have a broken leg and eye problem."
Hello. I would like to buy a fish license, please.
Pataki has "this is AWESOME" face.
Still true, in a different post.
it may apply to this post. we'll find a way
If England didn't exist, right-wing assholes would invent her.
I can't wait for SVU to rip this from the headlines; they really dropped the ball on the Craigslist Killer adaptation and I have been waiting for amends.
I could just imagine Ice T throwing this lady crook against the store wall and Stabler making some cocky comment about the place smelling fishy and Olivia with that "I'm on the verge of tears" look telling her she's going away for a long time.
Between the pirate cockatiel and the gerbil swimming in a cup of coffee, this could be the elevator pitch for a new David Lynch film.
This isn't too terrible - at least she didn't have any OMG cats...
"gerbil to a 14-year-old girl with learning difficulties, who later dropped it into a cup of coffee."
HOLY SHIT. MUST. STOP. INAPPROPRIATE. LAUGHTER.
What learning disability makes you drop a gerbil into a cup of coffee? Was it asleep?
I think it is that particular learning disability--I am blanking on what Science calls it--that is the predecessor to becoming a serial killer?
@garge: Apparently this woman had it
http://forums.qrz.com/showthread.php?p=1839204
Oh. Man. That is quite a .. potpourri.
What's the problem - hamsters are only $2.
Maybe he'll pay more attention in school now. ☹
To be fair to the person who said he was making it up... I would have made something like that up as a kid.
I was a unique child and was the frequent source of teachers' nervous laughter.
I do have a sneaking suspicion that you would have given up the ghost when the local media, police, and child protective services got involved.
But now I need to know, the rhetorical edition: do they have a body??
@garge: clearly you don't know me.
@HG, all apologies, I never intended to underestimate the childhood you--
When I was a kid our cat ate my sister's hamster. I'm still laughing about that over 30 years later.
When I was a kid our cat ate my sister's goldfish, which I would laugh harder about today if I hadn't stepped on the fishhead in bare feet.
I thought that's what pet shops are for ... selling disposable animals.
I have the same problem - I'm always getting in trouble for selling things to kids who are "too young" and that have "not hit puberty". Lighten up, Brits.