Rainy Day in Memphis

Currently Reading: I, Claudius by Robert Graves


The dog wash business is a little bit like the car wash business, especially when it comes to rainy days. Ever see a busy car wash when it was raining outside? Dog wash, same thing.

Yesterday was one of those rainy days so things were very slow. I glanced at the log when I got to work and we'd only had 4 dogs come through the place all day. Makes sense though. Who wants to pay to get their dog washed when it's going to be muddy for a few days? This same storm will give us plenty of business over the weekend I bet. Muddy dogs will need to be cleaned.

Even worse, the store had gotten a heads up that they might get a visitor on Tuesday. District manager I think. I remember what it was like at Kmart when that would happen and it seems to be a universal in the retail industry. When you have a VIP coming in, you clean the store from top to bottom, just in case. You clean places you KNOW they're not going to look. Doesn't matter. You clean it just in case. That's how we spent Monday. We cleaned everything and that didn't leave us much for Tuesday.

There was some entertainment though. First up was the finch that successfully managed an escape attempt. On the plus side, finches aren't all that smart so it never left the store. On the minus side, there are a LOT of places that a finch can hang out to avoid capture.

While we were watching out for the finch, a group came in wanting to buy a hamster. This provided us with the night's dose of irony. The hamster in question was removed from it's cage and handed to the customers who took turns holding it. The sales person (not me, I wash dogs not sell rodents) said, "The good thing about this particular breed is that they do NOT bite." So naturally it bit :-) My guess as to what happened is that whoever was holding it squeezed a little TOO tight. Those guys don't bite but they do have a survival instinct too. If they feel like they're going to be squished, they'll bite to get free.

In the middle of all this excitement our missing finch came swooping down from somewhere and landed right on a customer's head. No, I'm not kidding, it landed in her hair. We had her moving slowly towards the bird enclosure but, alas, the finch caught on to what we were doing and took off before she got inside the door.

After selling a kennel and doing some general cleaning to finish off the salon area for the night, I finally decided to nab that escaped bird once and for all. I got the net and the chase began. Along the way I ran into the assistant manager who told me with certainty that I would NEVER catch that bird. Should have bet on it.

In all the hunt for the bird only took about half an hour. Finches have no endurance so your best bet to catch one is to just follow it around until it gets too tired to move fast. That's what I did. Caught that little guy with a move he'd have easily dodged earlier.

And now, another glorious two days off for me. Tonight, CC and I are eating out again; Indian, again :-)

Not bad for a rainy day :-)

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