Thursday, October 04, 2007

What's in a Name?


Several months ago we got a pet for the store. We didn't do it on purpose. It was a gift. Sort of. A customer in Texas did something to ruin his suit and sent it back to us for replacement (we have a wear-proof guarantee, so he was allowed to do that). What really surprised the person who opened the box was that, along with the suit, there was a small, live scorpion. Nobody wanted to kill the thing, so our shipping guy picked up a plastic cage, sand, a water dish, and a rock to make a new home (pictured above) for our little scorpion . I left work while all the salesmen were discussing how to feed it.

When I got to work the next morning I found that the scorpion cage had been adorned with its own label. I was, however, a little confused by what it said. "PAT THE [STORE NAME] SCORPION" was emblazoned on the front. Why on earth would we encourage our customers to touch a poisonous creature that holds its stinger above its head? When the salesmen came in for work I asked what had possessed them to put that on the cage. Turns out they decided the scorpion needed a name. To make it easy they chose the first name of the person who sent us the box. Pat. I smiled and told them where a comma would be prudent. The label now says, "PAT, THE [STORE NAME] SCORPION" and we've had no fatalities.

1 comment:

Cicada said...

That is so funny. I'm glad you didn't pat it.