Pet Shop Boy

As some of you know, I used to work at a local pet shop - I worked there for more than 5 years on-and-off through high school and college. Since I like animals (not in that way, you sicko), it was a cool gig. Plus, taking puppies out of cages always attracted females ... but, I digress.

One of my more embarrassing moments happened one Sunday morning. Given the day, I was probably hung over, but I'm not making any excuses, darn it! After cleaning the kennels and feeding the animals, I was ready to open the gate. We had this gate in the front of the store that required a crank to crank the gate up.

Near the gate, we had a large parakeet cage. It was strategically place by the gate to attract customers (for some reason, people loved parakeets in the late 80's and early 90's). So, why am I mentioning this cage? You'll see.

As I was cranking the gate open, I noticed it was much more difficult to crank than normal. Still, like a true employee, always going above and beyond, I kept cranking and cranking. Finally, at one point, I couldn't crank anymore ... but the gate wasn't all the way up. I took a step back to get a full view and figure out the reason. Yep, apparently the parakeet cage got pushed up against the gate, probably whilst somebody was sweeping the floor.

Unfortunately, now, the cage was no longer on the floor, and was dangling about 5 feet above the ground ... at one with the gate. Just as I saw this, the cage fell off the gate, and before I knew it, the mall was now infested by parakeets. I spent the entire day with a ladder and a net, trying to capture the loose parakeets ... talk about a hit one's pride.