Pet Lovers

Recently, an upcoming joint promotion by the People’s Association (PA) and Pet Station to hard sell the Passion card, which never seemed to have taken off after all these years and which is why they are still trying so hard, was aborted after protest by outraged animal lovers and intervention by SPCA and AVA. At this road show at tiong bahru plaza, discounts would be given to Passion card holders, and Pet Station would give away a free hamster to anyone who spent $25 or more (or maybe it’s $35 but doesn’t matter). It was a dumb idea but I could understand why – for years, the PA has been associated with people a.k.a human beings, so we should be more forgiving that it’s not sensitive to animals. As Pet Station, maybe it just wants to clear its stocks? To prevent such hoohas from happening in future, maybe they can offer cooked animals – like grilled hamsters or stewed rabbits, and keep these as mystery gifts, so the public has no time to complain in advance and ruin their promotions.

Many years ago (i think even before attended kindergarten), McDonalds also gave out free goldfish for the purchase of a set meal (I supposed). I got to choose from a pail of black, yellow goldfishes. Of course, I went for the gold one – goldfish has to be in gold mah! I was so excited to own a pet for the first time in my life and started to fall in love with fish rearing! I couldn’t sleep that night, waking up every now and then to check on my goldfish. It could blow bubbles (like Ponyo) at me. My parents certainly shared my joy with me. My mom went to the market the next morning and bought my pet a companion – a little green fish with a sharp tail. Then, my goldfish turned on its tummy. It was only much later that I learned the murderer was called “sword tail”. And till today, I haven’t got to know the sex of my goldfish, but I guessed it’s a boy cuz it enjoyed playing with me. Subsequently, we also bought guppies, some which got caught in the sink or washed down altogether while we were changing the water. 10 guppies dwindled to nine, then eight, then… My mom bought a pair of angel fish which avenged my goldfish! Their fate – my mom poured them into the drain cuz they turned out to be nasty pets.

When I closed the windows this morning, I saw the pail which came with my little goldfish hanging next to the windows. My mom uses it to hold clothes pegs, and it should be around for quite a while. I hope SPCA wont contact us cuz it really happened ages ago…ages…