The Two...Boys?

I saw the guy walk into the store.
Which was irritating because we weren't open for another hour.

But it's rather common for customers to see our doors automatically slide open and assume that we are open...
*exhales* The doors slide open because we have to have them open for the grooming salon and vet which opens a couple of hours earlier than the main store.

In any case.
I didn't think anything more of the customer.
Because I was busy cleaning cages.
Though I assumed I'd have to help him check out because I was the only one near the front of the store at that point in time.

However,
As I was taking a bag of trash from the cage cleaning to the back.
...My manager found me.
With the customer in tow.

The only reason for the manager to come to me....would be if the guy had a question about something in my department. *groans*
Which turned out to be true.

>.< And it wasn't an easy "here's the answer, go away" sort of thing.
No. I ended up spending half an hour of my 'before we're open' time helping this customer out. >.<
Which automatically delayed me in basically everything for the rest of the day. >.< Grrrrrrrrr.
Always the more frustrating when I feel like my time has been wasted. *exhales*

In any case.

Apparently almost a year ago.
-Back in July.
This customer had come into the store to buy a couple of parakeets.
Where he'd been promised that he'd purchased a boy and girl parakeet.

And because this customer is color blind....it's difficult for him to tell the boys and girls apart.
(Boy parakeets have blue noses, Girls have pink.)
But after a while...and after showing his birds to some of his friends.
...Who have owned parakeets....and maybe bred them? And hearing their answers.
He'd come to the conclusion that the two birds he had....were both boys.
And he really wanted a breeding pair.

So a 'couple of weeks ago' as he told me.
He called the store,
Explained the situation to a guy named "Colby" (....which we don't have any Colbys in our store....)
and my coworker said that he could bring in the bird and exchange it for in the store for a girl parakeet.

Which is what he did.
He came in.
The manager who talked to him grabbed one of my coworkers, and she caught the bird, and established that yes it was a female.
And the guy went away happy.

....Though for whatever reason....no paperwork was given to the customer for this second bird....
(Which is super odd because we always give new paperwork...)

In any case. -A later chat with my opening coworker revealed that she'd been the one to help him, though she felt that it was over two weeks ago that she'd helped him.
*sighs*

Back to the story.
So he takes this bird home.
And is happy to have two once more...
Until he realizes...
That the noses on the birds are the same shade.
(even if he can't see the color he can tell the shades are different.)
Which must have meant... >.< He'd been given another boy!!

So this morning.
He brought both birds back to the store.
To return the one bird.
And actually get the female that he wanted so the birds would eventually breed.

Though when I first saw him, he didn't have the birds with him.
So I ended up following him outside to his car.
-Wondering if I was about to get kidnapped the entire time-
To where he had the birds in the back seat.
He uncovered the cage.
And I got a good look at them.
And yes the noses were the same color.
....but in the light they looked more pink to me....not the blue of the male I'd been expecting.
Still.
The guy was insistent that he had two males.
So I thought...maybe the light was bad...and maybe the noses were more purple than pink....
-As the males look purple/blue, while the females look pink/tan.

In any case I had him bring the birds into the store.
And showed him the birds in our cages that I could tell for sure were girls.
So that he and the girl he was with, could pick out a bird that they wanted.

-Our birds come in around 3-4 months old, and sometimes their noses haven't darkened to the pink or blue color instead being a white shade. Hence why I can't always tell their gender.

So the customer pointed to a bird.
And I caught it so I could get a closer look at it to see if it was a boy or girl.
Established it was a girl.
But it wasn't the one the girl wanted.
So I think I put back the bird I'd just caught, and caught one that she wanted.
That was also a girl.

But the guy didn't believe that it was a girl as it looked the same shade as his males to him.
So I brought the bird I had in hand closer to his birds to compare them.
And sure enough they were the same color.

And since I was in the light of the store now.
Where I know how the parakeet genders should look in the light.

I told him.
"You have two girls."

*rolls eyes*
Of course, he didn't quite believe me.
So I put the parakeet I'd caught back, and grabbed out another bird that was for sure a male with his dark blue nose.
And showed him.

That that was a male.
And the ones he had were girls.
Because he'd had one of the parakeets for nearly a year, which meant it's nose wasn't going to change color and it was still pink.

Therefore.
Both birds were girls.

...honestly...I question how much his friends actually knew about parakeets if they got the gender wrong.

Since I've worked at the store longer than everyone else in my dept...I'm pretty confident that I was right.
He had two girls.

*shakes head*
It should have been a simple. "Look, this is the only boy I have for sure. therefore you take this bird." situation from then on.
But no.
The bird that was getting returned wasn't the customer's. No it was the girl that had come with him who was picking out the bird.
And she didn't want the green parakeet I'd caught.

>.< Ugh.
But that was the ONLY one that I could tell for SURE was a boy.

Instead, I now had to play a guessing game with all the younger birds that hadn't shown their true colors yet.
So I ended up grabbing like two more birds for her to see closer and to choose form.
Ones that look like their noses may darken to blue as I could see blue shades underneath the white.

She finally picked one that she liked.
And I again warned her that I wasn't for sure that this bird was a boy.
But I was glad that after catching like six parakeets that they'd finally settled on one.

And this time, I made sure to give them the paperwork.
Because since the paperwork wasn't done for whatever reason yestertime...I had no receipt to look up.
And so had to do a no receipt return (which is a hassle all on it's own)

But in the end.
They left with new paperwork and bird.
And I was finally free to return to my morning tasks.

I really hope they don't come back.

Until you next read these words;
I'll be watching the leaves.
Enjoy the day!

-Sarnic Dirchi