A Python Ate It

When I was an undergrad, I pushed the limits of the dorm pet policy by keeping a 25 gallon aquarium in my room.  Its primary occupant wasn't a fish.  I had a lobster in there.  Not just a normal lobster: I had a bright blue one.  Obviously.  (This is a true story.  Blueness in lobsters is a rare genetic quirk akin to albinism.)

If you don't already know, lobsters are primarily scavengers.  But they're more than capable of being aggressive hunters if the need arises.  If you keep a lobster in a sparklingly clean aquarium and don't feed it very often, that need arises.  This is where the fun starts!  Strictly speaking, I was not supposed to have a pet lobster in the dorms.  I could have fish.  Fish were ok.  I was also supposed to keep the aquarium size below 10 gallons.  But questions like "Are lobsters fish?" and "How big is that beautiful, well-maintained aquarium?" are rarely of strong interest to liberal-minded RA's.  Also, I intentionally kept fish in there.  So it was a fish tank.  No one looks at a fish tank and gasps, "I need to write this guy up immediately."  People also rarely search your fish tank thinking you have stuff hidden in there.

In reality, however, I had a lobster tank with some very nice fish in it.  Blue gouramis mostly.  And some black mollies.  I fed the lobster often enough, but occasionally it would get hungry anyway.  If the lobster got hungry, it would do exactly what you'd expect it to do.  It would hunt, murder, and slowly consume one of the fish.  That process was fun to watch.

This had an amusing real world side effect.  Due to lobster-related complications, the population of fish in my aquarium maintained an erratic downward slide. So from time to time, I would head down to the local pet store to buy more.  The local pet store was owned by an intimidating lesbian who was very passionate about her pets.  She had a generous replacement policy when it came to fish, because her sales tanks were very clean and her pets were all exceptionally healthy.  She would interrogate her customers about the conditions you were taking her fish home to so that they would have maximal chances of survival.  If she felt you had too many fish in your tank already, she'd decline to sell you more.  If your tank sounded dirty somehow, no fish for you.  Sick fish recently?  Sounds like you should give that situation some time before taking home more fish.

But I could pass that test easily.  I had a reasonably large tank with a small number of fish in it.  I had lots of live plants in there (which is great for the water).  I had both a primary and secondary filter.  I cleaned the tank at least once a month.  I was a model customer.

So it eventually aroused suspicion when I kept buying fish while claiming not to own very many.  When grilled on how I could be the owner of just four fish when she could recall me having bought more like 20, I simply explained that my lobster kept eating them.  Alarmed, she denounced the compatibility of lobsters with small freshwater fish.  I smiled calmly and highlighted that her objection was not news to me.  I reminded her that my tank was in fine shape, and stressed that I had never once returned a dead fish for a replacement.  Finally I pointed to her tank of feeder goldfish and questioned why she'd have that if she had concerns that the fish she was selling might get eaten.

She was extremely annoyed with me after that, but eventually resumed selling me any damn fish I wanted.  I was a good customer, and my tank really was extremely well maintained.

That story got me thinking recently.  I know a bunch of people who like adopting pets.  Taking foster dogs and cats is a point of pride for some.  People build communities around the idea.  Everyone agrees that there are so many shelter dogs that need adopting.

I wonder if you could just keep showing up at shelters and adopting more and more pets.  When eventually confronted with questions about the last cat or dog you adopted, simply note: "Well, yeah.  A python ate it."  Then act puzzled that the shelter people don't understand what happens when you have cats and dogs running around under your ten foot python.  Perhaps gesture at the tanks full of feeder mice and rats typically maintained for that purpose.

I bet someone has already tried this.  I'm curious how that worked out.  I bet the shelter people got mad at them too.