Screw the Hamster, I Want Halo
While preparing for an upcoming trip this week I created a checklist of things to do. Some items were specific to travel but most were part of the weekly routine that involves feeding not only my own mouth but also those of a few cold-blooded accomplices that have managed to stick around over a decade of constant relocation.
My current digs are in the same locale I grew up in so the choice of where to acquire the premium of gut-loaded insects was a simple one. I'd be paying a visit to the independently owned pet store not only marked as one of the older establishments in the area but also as the very first distant destination I was permitted to bike to as a child. It had supplied me well on and off for the last 14 years whether I was there to gawk with my GT Performer inverted out on the sidewalk or I needed to special order a questionable toad. As time passed I'd buy crickets from the same guy that sold me that one tarantula I had to get rid of while in college or the lizard that once escaped for an entire winter break only to somehow re-emerge fatter than when he vanished.
The list grew shorter and I eventually pulled in to the pet store's lot as I had literally hundreds of times before. Upon arrival, however, I was not greeted by the oddly satisfying view of windows plastered with faded vendor stickers and condensed seawater but instead with the harsh contrasting colors of BUSINESS FOR SALE signs.
I blinked a few times as a random minivan swerved, cutting through yellow lines of the crosswalk despite the moron standing there staring up in confusion.
I've scoured Pricegrabber for years and typically allow a few days of web crawling when seeking the best deal for just about anything. I've clipped coupons, mailed in rebates, and traded in the old to offset the new while taking an intense pleasure in skipping from stone to stone across the swift rivers of commerce both electronic and physical.
This was different.
If ever there were a brick and mortar location I'd pledge loyalty to this was it. I'd been genuinely sad when the store cat, a multi-colored behemoth named Monty that would unexplainably sit on my foot for pleasure, came up missing. Even while working in a competing pet store all through high school each week would end with me stopping by for dozens of crickets at full price. This place and I, we had a history.
Truth told this wasn't completely unexpected; I've watched countless local places trampled either by the fickle economy or links of ever-expanding chain stores, but it was the response the owner gave as to why he thought that pet stores in general were on the decline that I found the hardest stomach.
He blamed video games.
He went on to say how kids nowadays don't want to do anything for themselves; they want to insert a disk and be entertained. That this fact was largely responsible for the number of pet stores in a 5-mile radius shrinking from 9 to 1 in the last 25 years.
I was floored.
It's no surprise that the video game industry, with its consumer-pleasing ratio of cost to entertainment, has eluded the increased gravity many other industries' bottom lines have been exposed to of late. Hell, I just got back in to gaming with a 360 a few weeks ago and games are expensive as ever but it isn't like their presence hasn't only been felt in the economy since the advent of next-gen consoles.
Or that infernal Internet.
As a youngster I poured hours in to games like Shining Force 2 or Earthworm Jim and fail to see any significant impact on the time spent alternately tipping over rocks for bugs or being tricked in to walking on that one rotting log that had the beehive in it. I'd go as far as to say that of the myriad ways to spend my time video games were just another outlet as available then as they are now.
While I can understand that independently owned anything shops are in a state of accelerated decay video games, whether in arcades or homes, have been around for generations. It defied logic to hear what I imagine was a recently broken soul divulging the chink in his armor as a cliché. A scapegoat.
Still, I mourn the store's passing and as others watch their favorite haunts succumb to whatever it is that drives out the unique or noteworthy we all can agree that these changes are seldom an improvement, that the pizza from that hole-in-the-wall joint really does taste better, and that sometimes the sweeter deal comes with service and not necessarily a lower price tag.
I doubt all such former business owners are as naive and can only hope that as time passes those of my generation don't let the New Thing, no matter what it is, get in the way of creating something unique or noteworthy.
Especially if it's an Old Thing.
What say you?!