If you recall back to a previous missive I mentioned that one of the challenges we were going to have when departing was what to do with my three axolotls (Itchy the Ichthyostega, Osteotagia, and Pak’ma’ra) when we departed the scene. I have had a couple of offers from friends to look after them in our absence, but it seemed like a lot of effort for them to go to, and so I was reluctant on that score. Not because I didn’t think those who offered could keep them alive in my absence, but because it seemed like a rather large imposition.

I thought about donating them to a school or kindergarden or something, where little kids might be appreciative of them, since that’s the sort of thing I would have liked in my classroom when I was at school, but then realised that there would be nobody there to look after them over the holidays when school was out. Also, in the event that a goldfish dies, they are easy to replace with another boring orange fish before the kids get back. An axolotl is more expensive and each one has it’s own patterns and personality so there would be no chance to do a quick swap.

Finally, I decided to put them into the Trading Post (for the benefit of those not in the know, it’s a newspaper where you pay to list stuff for sale) along with the whole aquarium set up and see what happened. Given a new 3-foot tank is $90, the pump is $40, the filter system is worth $20, underwater vacuum cleaner worth $10, and the three axolotls are worth $20 each, and even given the second-hand nature of the tank (still worth $50 alone), the whole arrangement was offered for $100 just to make sure it sold, despite being worth $180 all-up.

A couple from Geelong rang me at 8:00am yesterday, and asked me a couple of questions, then rang back to see whether I thought it would fit in their car or would they need a trailer? I estimated it would fit easily into their car, and they drove up the hour-long trip to see the tank. When they arrived, they decided against it, thinking that the stand was going to be quite tall, perhaps 2-3 feet tall off the ground. I offered them the tank without the stand, but they were not that interested. I think perhaps they wanted the tank as a major feature of the room, and the metal edges on the corners made them not interested. Could have painted it though, and it’d look fine.

Possibly the SPOTD’s too, since they did not ask about any measurements of what it was sitting on before driving an hour up and an hour back to Geelong. Then again, they were (1) from Geelong, and (2) driving a Mitsubishi Magna, so that explains a lot.

A woman rang me at midday about the axolotls as well, and asked if she could come over and look at them either in the afternoon or evening. I replied that the evening was not good for us, and that the afternoon would be fine as I would be home working. She agreed to come over in the afternoon, but never did.

At 6:45pm, I got a call from a guy who was the boyfriend of the girl who’d rung at midday, asking if they could come over and have a look. I resisted the urge to tell him to sod off, and asked instead how far away he was (since we were getting ready to depart to Geelong, but did not want it known the house would be empty either). Turns out they live in Kensington - and the distance between our houses was about 1.5kms. I said that would be fine, since I knew it would take no time at all for them to be here, and sat down and waited. And waited. And waited. And waited.

And waited.

One hour and forty seven minutes later, they arrived, with no explanation for the delay, and there was technically nothing I could say to them. No calling them stupid names. No abusing them. They were the customers (potentially, at least) after all, and I had to be nice to them. And if there is one thing that really irks me, it’s being nice and polite to inconsiderate and stupid people.

I almost baulked at selling them the axolotls, to be honest, based on their physical appearance. I was not sure I wanted my pets living with the sort of person that might feed them, but only when they bothered to. Based on the evidence, they’d not learned to tell the time yet, so it was rather worrying.

He got out of the Holden Torana wearing a pair of shorts and thongs only. Before he got to the door, he did us the honour of putting on a black T-shirt featuring some heavy metal band on the front. Tattoos ran from the ends of his toes to his forehead, and he was virtually completely covered with them, at least up his legs and arms. In his face, he had seven piercings at least, including a large ring through his nose (I tried to count them a few times, but there is only so long you can stare at someone and try to count the bits of metal in their face). To top this off, his hair was a lank combination of two foot long dreadlocks and general muck.

She was wearing a dress with one broken strap so that every time she breathed in or out, she had to grab at the top of it so it would not fall down to expose her chest. (Note : this was awful in that she had no chest to speak of anyway, so it was not like I’d want to look, but I had the most terrible fear that it would fall down while I was speaking to her, and her big scary boyfriend would turn and see me looking at precisely the moment her chest was exposed, then beat me up.)

A few tattoos adorned her body as well, though not the full coverage like her boyfriend’s. As I opened the door, their dog ran into the house, or at least tried to before my leg shot out, it copped a boot in the head and was projected back outside rather quickly. Before the animal lovers jump on me, it was not a kick. It was just that wherever it turned to escape my boot, I moved my leg to make sure there was no way of escape, and pushed it back out the door.

She told me she would put it on a leash, did so, and then proceeded to come inside - WITH THE DOG! I told her politely I would prefer it if the dog stayed outside, and she was fine with that, but rather than just tying it to the stairwell railings, she held it and did not come into the flat, choosing instead to look over the threshold from a few feet away.

Basically, these were the sort of people I would not associate with in any way, and here I was considering whether or not I was going to hand over my pets (in exchange for cash) for them to own. Very difficult decision. On the one hand, I knew the best I could muster for the setup if I sold it to an aquarium shop would be $40-$50, and on the other hand, I could sell it to tattooed pierced late bogans for twice that price. I decided the aquarium shop would probably resell everything, quite possibly to bogans anyway, so I cut out the middle man and made the deal.

At least they did not haggle about the price at all - not that I was willing to haggle with them really. Anyone else, yes, but not people that ring at midday, tell me they are coming in the afternoon, ring in the evening to come over and take 1.75 hours to travel 1.5kms when I’ve made it clear to them my evening has something planned in it.

Speaking to the girl on the phone at midday, she’d told me they had two already, so I knew that they had some idea of how to keep them alive at any rate, but I told them they should change the names since they were buying them for their own pets now. She said she’d be happy to keep the names I had for them, but when she tried to pronounce them, she decided to pass on Pak’ma’ra and Osteotagia, and instead just keep Itchy’s name, albeit not the full name of Itchy The Ichthyostega.

Not surprising, really. Didn’t exactly seem like those names would fit in with their axolotl names of “Axl” and “Spike”. And yes, the first one is named after Mr Rose.

Categories: Travel, Odyssey 2001