Roleplaying
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Seminars
| When: | 8 November 2004 |
| Who: | Adlai (as Eric), Genevieve |
| What: | Genevieve provides quick tips while bustling about the pet store in an attempt to be ready to close once nine o'clock strikes! |
A Pet For All Seasons
The comforting scent of pet bedding, and a symphony of mewls, yaps, and avian song greet visitors upon entering this well-stocked store. Renowned for dog training courses, Daniel Tevers's greatest love is for the canines that are housed in the kennels separated from the main floor by flexible plexiglass windows. Supplies and food for all other creatures are no short supply however, one entire wall occupied with aquariums and terrariums for all manner of aquatic and herpetological creatures, and even a section for small mammals. Numerous aviaries also house birds ranging from finches up to the meter long hyacinth macaws, available for the asking price of ten grand. All of the animals are excellent health.
Eric, a tall but somewhat gangly and thin young man with long brown hair and glasses walks into the pet store, looking around. He gives the tropical birds a wistful look, and moves on.
"No, really, I'm serious. Cat food IS more nutritious. It has more protein in it, ma'am, and the dog will bully the cat out of its food. You may want to consider keeping them in separate rooms while you're away at work." Genevieve is indeed present, resting her elbows ever so briefly on the main counter. As the door jingles from people coming and going, the cockatoo atop her shoulder pops up a pink and white crest, and bellows out a raucous greeting. "Oh man, Thor..." she trails off, before looking over towards the door expectantly. "Hey, Melanie? Can ya get the new guy?"
Eric blinks and smiles as he sees the cockatoo go off. "I am, er, just looking around for the moment," he says. "There is no need to worry over me yet," he concludes, although by the stunned look on his face the amount of animals here is somewhat overwhelming.
Genevieve blinks, and waves cheerily enough nonetheless, before humming merrily to herself as she cruises past the animal care books on their rotating stands, poking through some of the aquariums, dunking the nets in a dark blue liquid, planting one hand on her hip.
Eric watches with some bemusement as he sees you working. "Er, miss?" he inquires, "Can I ask what you are doing?" He shoves his hands deep into his pockets.
Genevieve blinks a bit, and then looks over the taller man for a moment, eyes wide for a moment. She looks utterly surprised at the question, but then nods. "Well, truth be told, I'm just doing some upkeep on the tanks. Specifically, the dark liquid's a disinfectant that sterilizes the nets, so we don't transfer any infections from tank to tank. We keep our fish quarantined in back for about two weeks before we show them and let people buy them. She giggles some at a few black finned, red bodied fish zip around, waggling their tails. "Platies are fun, they're livebearers, which means they hatch the eggs inside and then pop out babies. Surprises little kids all the time, wake up one morning and see these little slivers with big ol' eyes poking around in the shadows of the tank!" A gleeful laugh comes from her, as if she herself has been victim to the piscine fecundity. The cockatoo chortles, and then opens his beak to toy with her earrings.
Eric gestures a shrug in the direction of Genevieve. "A few times when it is on TV," he says, clearly confused, "Why?" He smiles and watches the shy bird, waving hesitantly to him. He greets the bird, saying, "Hello, Thor."
Genevieve laughs, and raises a hand. "Because everyone always asks me if I mean the Norse god. It's one of the... 'good' aliens, as it were." She smiles, and shrugs some, before half turning and dropping one shoulder. The bird pops up a crest. "Go ahead, you nut," she states to both him and the visitor. After a moment, the Moluccan struts over, emitting a few kind gurgles.
Eric nods in response to that. "Oh, I guessed that it was the Norse god, too," he admits. He gthen gets an utterly delighted look on his face and heads forward to gently and carefully pet Thor in that sweet spot at the head/neck joint.
Genevieve ehns to herself, and shrugs. "Just not really into the whole polytheistic thing," she murmurs, squinting slightly over her shoulder as she takes advantage of her momentary freedom from her rider. The cockatoo clucks, but doesn't really seem capable of mimicking any words, just quite yet. Canting his head to the side, he settles down on the tall man's shoulder. Genevieve seems to move much more quickly now, hefting a few bags of dog food to even out the stacks of Iams and Eukanuba. "So you seem to like birds a lot. She had a budgie, huh? Big leap between that and.... THAT." She raises a slender hand to point at the cat-sized animal clambering about on the suit.
Eric nods and goes very still looking somewhat afraid. "Er, yeah. Is he going to be alright walking around on me?" asks the youth as he watches Genevieve tend to the store. He is fairly good at standing still. In fact, he manages to move his other arm around to continue the very necessary act of appeasing Thor without disturbing the rest of his body.
"Yeah, he's fine. Just don't hop skip and jump around." A rather gratified coo escapes the cockatoo. "The store's a good place for him, lots of people to socialize with. THOSE things, however..." She points to the hyacinth macaws toying with peanuts, "Can take a metal cage apart in an afternoon. A lot of people aren't ready for larger birds, budgies are nice." She grins a bit, before looking over towards the aviary, where green and yellow, and white and blue, bodies hop and flutter around another cage, chirping and chattering. "Some people like to have entire flocks." She grins indulgently, before half-spinning some.
Eric continues to pet the cockatoo. He is fairly certain he could not afford Thor or his upkeep, so he asks with a hopeful tone, "How much are the budgies? Not just to buy, but in upkeep in general?" Eric may not be the most extroverted young man but he is a smart and careful one.
Genevieve hmms, and looks thoughtful. "Well, depending on how much you're home, you'd want to buy a pair. Makes it harder to train them, but they'll be happier if you have to be away for several hours. Initial costs are same as every other animal you get, food, housing -- the cage needs to be at LEAST three feet cubed, I don't care what ANYONE says," she then turns towards the shelves. "Depending on what food you get, you'll want a vitamin supplement to add to the water. And then there's always trimming for the nails, a cuttlebone for them to trim their beak on and to get calcium, and toys. They NEED to chew. Otherwise, it's all over, they'll start biting each other, themselves.... And on occasion, a millet spray as a treat. They're relatively inexpensive, less than a cat or a dog. The thing to keep in mind is that you need a good mix of seed and even fruit... So... hnn... SHOULDN'T be more than thirty five bucks a month. Each."
Eric looks like he is going to reach around to pull off his backpack for a moment, but he then realizes that Thor is clambering over his shoulders. Unwilling to disturb the beautiful cockatoo, he says, "Wow, thirty-five? I think I could afford that. Er. Do you have a pamphlet or something?" he asks hopefully as he indicates Thor with the petting hand. As this is objected to Eric rapidly goes back to petting the bird. "I do not have much free at the moment," he explains.
Genevieve shrugs a bit, "I'm really overestimating. I like to have them spoiled rotten." She ahs, and nods quietly. "Sure thing. I'm going to be closing up soon anyway. Free literature? Well..." She furrows her brow, and shakes her head. "Not REALLY... but I could give you a few websites real quick," she continues to speak rapidfire, her soprano voice lilting slightly as she goes back to the counter to snatch up a piece of paper and a pen. She squiggles down, www.letstalkbirds.com/budgie.htm in black ink, and jabbers out, "This is a decent site, covers other things too, if you get interested. Watch out, though, it can be quite a habit. The larger ones have the mentality of a two year old, can be very clingy... and will live to be ninety. Imagine that, huh?" She finally stretches out an arm, at which point, Thor ducks his head and bows, spanning his wings out to a full three feet and emitting a wild chortle mixed with a bray. "Okay, okay, glad to see you to. That should get ya started, didn't mean to keep ya if you had to be somewhere." She grins some, and then half-turns back to her counter.
Eric stretches out now that Thor is off his shoulders. He plants his hands together way out in front of himself and pops his joints, taking a moment to adjust. He smiles over at Genevieve when he is done and folds the piece of paper up to put in his jean shorts. "No, no," he tells her, "I am done with classes for the day and just looking around. I am Eric."
Genevieve ahs, and nods. "There's a lot of nice stores around here, you'll find plenty to do, that's for sure." She grins some, and then eeks some as the cockatoo begins pulling at some of the longer wisps of her hair. "I don't need preening," she sasses back towards the animal, cheeks round with a grin nonetheless. "Hi, Eric. My name's Genevieve. Like I said, I'm usually out before now. I get short days, usually. Lets me draw here and there." She chuckles some, and then hums. "Well, good luck with the rest of your searching. I've got kittens and puppies to sort through, just to make sure they're not doing that whole runny eye thing, you know?" She stands up on tiptoe momentarily, one slender hand raised pertly, as if to emphasize her point.
"Oh yeah! Budgies.org! That's another one!" Genevieve's voice pops up from somewhere behind back, accompanied by a few yaps of puppies. She pokes her head around the corner, and then nods. "OH yeah, sure, we're open regular hours, just check 'em on the front door." A winning grin crosses her features, before a muffled yelp of 'ow, y'lil' stinker, that's my shin!" can be heard.
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