I've heard a lot of people say that they want to rescue Wal-Mart's GSPs but don't want to contribute to Wal-Mart's tropical fish department. I got my two GSPs from Wal-Mart a year ago. I paid for them and I got them completely legally, but Wal-Mart's records never showed that they sold one of their puffers.
Here's what I did:
The first time, I went to the fish department and started talking to the sales associate. She told me all about how more than 90% of their puffers die in transit and how they feed them flake food and how she had NO IDEA that they needed brackish water.
I told her, "Y'know, they puff up if they're exposed to air. Would you mind if I get my own? I know how to catch them."
At this time, I glanced at the product number on the platy tank, caught my puffer and put her in the baggie. I asked the sales associate to tell me the product number so I could write it on the bag, and she did. And I wrote down the platy product number instead.
I got up to the front later and started chatting with the cashier. She picked up the bag with my puffer in it and said, "Wow, what the heck is that thing?"
I said (with a totally straight face): "I think its' called.... a plate-y... Or a platy...?"
She entered in the product number and confirmed, with confidence, that it was a platy. I paid $4 less than I would have otherwise, and Wally World had no record that they sold a puffer.
The next week, I came back to glance at the aquatics section. They had 20 puffers, dead or dying with ich and fungus. I waited in that section for about 20 minutes and nobody came, so I went ahead and caught the strongest one myself. (He later needed intensive treatment.) I bagged him up, wrote the platy product number on the bag, and didn't hear a single comment from the cashier when he rung me up.
So there's my confession. The cool thing is that I didn't steal them, and, in both cases, I could have explained it away by saying that I had written down the wrong number.
Here's what I did:
The first time, I went to the fish department and started talking to the sales associate. She told me all about how more than 90% of their puffers die in transit and how they feed them flake food and how she had NO IDEA that they needed brackish water.
I told her, "Y'know, they puff up if they're exposed to air. Would you mind if I get my own? I know how to catch them."
At this time, I glanced at the product number on the platy tank, caught my puffer and put her in the baggie. I asked the sales associate to tell me the product number so I could write it on the bag, and she did. And I wrote down the platy product number instead.
I got up to the front later and started chatting with the cashier. She picked up the bag with my puffer in it and said, "Wow, what the heck is that thing?"
I said (with a totally straight face): "I think its' called.... a plate-y... Or a platy...?"
She entered in the product number and confirmed, with confidence, that it was a platy. I paid $4 less than I would have otherwise, and Wally World had no record that they sold a puffer.
The next week, I came back to glance at the aquatics section. They had 20 puffers, dead or dying with ich and fungus. I waited in that section for about 20 minutes and nobody came, so I went ahead and caught the strongest one myself. (He later needed intensive treatment.) I bagged him up, wrote the platy product number on the bag, and didn't hear a single comment from the cashier when he rung me up.
So there's my confession. The cool thing is that I didn't steal them, and, in both cases, I could have explained it away by saying that I had written down the wrong number.
