....Whelp. There Had Been No Interest

*exhales* 

It happens almost every time.

I'll have a customer come into the store.
And express an interest in one of our animals.

Usually it's one of the animals that we rarely sale, like a Chinese Water Dragon, Conure, Chinchilla, etc. Or like the cat that nobody has wanted to take out of the cage to see if they wanted to adopt it.

And the customer often asks the question of "Is there much interest in this animal?" 

To which I usually reply "Not really." 
Most of the time I add in. "But that could change."

Because it does.
I could have an animal have zero interest in our store for like six months.
But the moment I say "No, no one's really looked at it. It's likely it will still be here."

It's like a signal is sent throughout the valley like a flashing neon sign. "HEY! COME BUY THIS ANIMAL, SOMEONE ELSE WANTS IT." 

Because the customer is often like "I need to think about it. Or I might be back later." 

Only...to have someone else come in and say "I want this animal here." And buy it. 

Which always puts stress on me.
Because I know there was another customer wanting the animal.
But like....I can't just put it on hold. Because there's always the chance that they won't come back. So I don't want to miss out on a sale or getting the animal a forever home...but like...I hate imagining how disappointed and/or angry that first customer will get when they come back in and find the animal they were interested in....gone.

That happened today.
With our cat adoptions.
There was a 1 year old orange tabby in our cages.
Who'd had basically zero interest in him since he came to the store. (at least while I was on duty idk about during other people's shifts) 
And this guy comes in, stating that he's wanting the cat, but he's concerned that it won't get along with the other cat.
So he needed to think it over, talk with his wife, bring in his kid etc.
And I was like "I can put him on a temporary hold for you." But he was like "Nah..." 

Mistake.

Because like maybe an hour? Maybe two hours after he left?
Another family came in.

And guess which cat they wanted?
Exactly.
The cat that had had no interest shown in it before.
I did try my hand at convincing them to go for a different cat.
But nope.
Their hearts were set on the orange tabby.

*exhales* 
So I adopted him out to them...
And spent the rest of my shift hoping that the first guy didn't show back up because I didn't want to have to explain to him that the cat had been adopted right after he left. 

Ugh.
I hate those situations.
It's unnecessarily stressful for me.

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

-Sarnic Dirchi