PetSmart field trip.

[flvegan]

I was just off to get the usual weekly truckload of kibble for the pibbles, etc (and a stop at the liquor store, heh). Lo and behold, there are two buses in the PetSmart parking lot. Sure enough, a couple teachers were there with their classes looking at the birds, fish and hamsters. I thought that was kind of odd.

Am I the only one?

And don't even get me started on the traffic. You know? The onramp is 1/8th of a mile long for a bloody reason. Get up to speed and get out of my way. I don't care if you are a cop.

:hide:

[BeachBaby]

1. Huh. We always did the zoo for animal-related field trips.

So yeah, odd to me, too.

And I weave in and out of traffic - I have a life. Cops or no.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

3. You're from NJ, you have to weave in and out of traffic

[BeachBaby]

4. Exactly.

[skygazer]

2. We regularly have kids come to the grocery store where I work for field trips

:wtf:

Can you imagine a more boring field trip? As if the kids have never been to a grocery store! And it's a pain in the ass for us to have a gaggle of kids wandering around the store - "This is the deli department!" "And here's where mommy buys her boxed wine!" - getting in the way.

When I was a kid, we went to museums and historical places, I remember going to a marble quarry and a living history museum.

The fucking grocery store. Poor kids. :(

[MorningGlow]

5. Around here as well

I know they're teaching kids about nutrition and maybe business, but all I can think is that they're training these kids to be future shoppers at that particular supermarket. (They ply them with cookies afterward, I believe. Small ones, but still.)

[flvegan]

6. And ANOTHER thing:

those poor kids! Imagine they're told they're going to the "pet store" to see the animals. They get their little permission slips and shit, and happily board the bus that day just waiting...itching to get their hands on puppies and kittens. They get there and it's birds and fish. And yeah, I'm glad they didn't go to that fresh hell that is Petland or some other puppy mill outlet, but still.

And pity the poor hamsters and guinea pigs. Just minding their own business, and suddenly there are 50 little humanlets tapping and banging on your glass cage. Now all they want to do is hide. Or bite them and give them the rabies.

[skygazer]

7. The guinea pigs could give them swine flu

That sounds like a good panic-inducing proposition for GD -

"Do guinea pigs pose a potential threat for swine flu?!"

[CreekDog]

8. WTF who goes to the store for a field trip?

:banghead:

[flvegan]

9. See? That's what I'm saying.

[InvisibleTouch]

10. According to my ex-almost-sister-in-law...

...who is a grade school teacher, they are not allowed to have live animals in the classroom anymore, due to some idiot law that was passed in the last few years. (Talk about denying kids the opportunity to care about other living beings!) So maybe a trip to PetSmart was their only chance to come into contact with common pet species.

[Mike 03]

11. I'm probably the odd one, but I think that's awesome. PetsSmart was so superior

to PetCo, where I just had the worst experiences of my life, that I'm so happy to see kids exposed to that much healthier, more pet-friendly place.

Anything that promotes PetSmart over Petco thrills me.

Petco, IMO, is no better than Abu Graibe, or however you spell it.

[surrealAmerican]

12. Pretty darn sad.

Do you live somewhere where there is no zoo?

[flvegan]

13. No. Tampa has Lowry Park Zoo. A huge well-accredited zoo.

Not that I care for zoos, but it does exist. I do know that budgets are tight, so a zoo might not have been in the cards. Just seemed that PetSmart was an odd choice.

[surrealAmerican]

14. It is an odd choice.

As if the kids don't have enough advertising in their lives already, they get company propaganda for their field trip.