“Daddy!” cried the beastly girl who had dragged her unwitting father into my store, “I want one of those!” she yelled at her father who was talking on his cellphone.

The girl moved, from tank to pen to hutch to cage, jabbering all the while; pulling her stressed father along beside her. She stopped next to the terraria and poked at the glass, pointing out various of our geckos and frogs, whining whenever her father would shush her amid his urgent whisperings.

Since the girl appeared to have chosen; I sidled up in the hope of making a sale; smiling expectantly at the father before nodding at the tadpole maturation tank and then at the geckos.

“How much for the frog?” he asked, gesturing at the most mature in the tank. I reached in as his daughter began to sniffle. “No, that one…. No, THAT one. Goddammit, how much for the frog, that one with the tail?” he asked, before glancing once more at his now glowering offspring. “Well excuse me!” he exclaimed, more to her than to me, “How much for the lizard then?”