I had the most interesting argument with a client today. This lady walks in with a shoe box that had some holes punched in the top. I greeted her, and the next thing you know she is lifting the lid of the box...never a good sign in my business. Usually means somebody wants to show me something gross or a mutilated animal. :) Three tiny, gray little fuzzies were climbing around in a pile in the box. It was then that I noticed that they seemed to look a little crunchy on some of their appendages. The lady proceeded to tell me that these "poor innocent little creatures" had apparently been in a nest inside her brother's BBQ grill. He had lit the grill, then heard them squeaking and rescued them. One of them had no back feet, they were burned off. One had no front feet. And all three had only half a tail left in an unburned condition. The lady was stroking the little kits, and holding them up by her face and kissing them. Typical moron. The reason that she had come in was to find out what type of animals they were. She was fully convinced that they were newborn squirrels. Her plan was to raise them and teach them how to adapt to being four feet and 1-1/2 tails short of 3 real animals. :)
I smiled and kindly said, "I think they might be baby rats. I've never seen any squirrels that looked quite like that." TRANSLATION: Those are RATS. PLEASE STOP KISSING THEM as they carry bazillions of disgusting diseases and they are really NOT SQUIRRELS!!! The lady looked at me, horrified. Her brain refused to wrap around the fact that she had been kissing, cuddling, and bottle feeding tiny RATS for the past 5 days. Then she went into complete denial.
"Are you a Doctor?"
"No, Ma'am, I'm not."
"Well, can I get a professional opinion? I GOOGLED a picture of baby squirrels and I really think these are baby squirrels! I mean, they are getting really attached to me and they hold their bottles with their front paws. I don't think RATS would act like that, DO YOU!!!!!"
I calmly replied, "Well, I have a world-reknowned exotic animal specialist on site today. When he steps out of his appointment I'll ask him to step out and tell you exactly what they are."
The lady smugly sat down to wait. And when an extremely well-known exotic and avian specialist stepped into the lobby and pronounced the crispy little creatures BABY RATS, I felt supremely satisfied. :)
