Not a Goldfish

“Daddy…do you know what day today is?”

“Sure I do Pumpkin. Happy Birthday.”

“That’s right! Today I am ten years old. I hope you haven’t forgotten that you said I could get a pet when I turned ten.” She looked up at him with her oversize brown eyes.

He vaguely remembered something about promising her a pet someday. That was years ago; she couldn’t have been more than three at the time. What kind of kid remembers a promise made to her when she was three?”

A man of his word, the dad loaded his daughter into the car and they headed off to the pet store. Maybe a goldfish or a turtle would do the trick. Unfortunately as they walked into the store, the first thing they bumped into was a giant cage with a monkey in it.

“Daddy! Daddy! I want a monkey! You promised! “

‘You have got to be shitting me,’ Dad thinks to himself.

He corralled the store manager up against a pile of llama feed. “What kind of pet store has a monkey in it? This ain’t no zoo. For Christ sake…a monkey! You have got to go out there and tell my daughter that the monkey is for display purposes only. You got that pal?”

The manager’s eyes narrowed and a sly smile slid down across his face. “Maybe we can work out a deal? Buy a poodle and I will handle the monkey thing.”

“A poodle? Don’t you have something a little less needy?”

“Well, I guess you could get something else, but you need to make it worth my while.”

“How about a hamster and cage with a dog to be named later?” the dad offered.

“Deal.”

Dad turned to see “Pumpkin” standing there scowling.

The monkey enjoyed the ride home.

Word count 300