I think you are confusing some kind of foreign food with the five constituent political divisions of New York City, again, dur.
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Sign me up for a “very tame” pet alligator! At $4.95, that’s a bargain! On a completely unrelated note, are New York sewer systems still radioactive?
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Who wants to pet my burro?
(The video’s a little odd, but that baby burro looks super soft and fluffy.)
Also…
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Here’s a tidbit that’s well known to us border-town dwellers of a certain age. Dunno if it’s still A Thing, but there exist photographs of my older siblings taken circa 1959 in Tijuana, Mexico, as they were posed astride a burro that had been spray-painted in black and white stripes to roughly resemble a zebra.
ETA: yep, apparently still A Thing:
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Just the babies.
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I thought those were bureaus…?
There were photo ops with painted burros, tiger cubs, an iguana in a tiny sombrero, and a 20-foot-long cigar when I went there a few years back.
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Back in the day, you could buy chickens, roosters, bees and probably a few other animals that slip my mind from Sears. But then, they have also sold entire houses and automobiles and motorcycles through their catalogs.
Was a serious thing for rural folk.
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It didn’t stop at that. Live in a farming heavy area. Old timers used to order full on chicken coops. Stables. Pig Sties. And the like from Sears. A long with the animals to go with them. You were basically mail ordering a bolt on addition to your farm. Feed tools animal buildings. All of it. There are a lot of farms around here with rotting or collapsed out buildings that started out as a Sears ordered project.
Mail-order poultry isn’t being sold as quirky children’s toys though, it’s just how you get birds for a backyard coop (or decorative pond, if you’ve got it like that) if you don’t live near a breeder. There’s nothing unusual about it. The parcels are ventilated and clearly marked and the Post Office knows how to handle them — they’re not getting thrown around in bins with your Amazon orders.
Its how you get poultry for a professional operation too.
And you’re lying to yourself if you think they’re not still being sold as children’s toys/pets. “Easter chicks” are still a big thing here. Advertised at the local feed store, and yes by some of those online breeders and the breeders catalogs that still exist. And at least recently in yuppie lifestyle/cooking magazines.
ETA: My school used to (and I think still does) actually provide them for all the kids. They haven’t been Easter chicks as just a novelty for at least 30 years. But around this time of year there’s a science class section for (IIRC) 3rd or 4th graders on embryo development. School orders up a crate of fertile eggs, and the kids incubate and hatch the chicks. Then take them home once they’re done with the unit. Lots of families with a solo chicken living in a improvised hutch in the back (usually assembled from a cardboard box). Until they realize its a little more complicated than that. Local farmers love it. They end up getting their small flock for free. From the overflow of birds that were supposed to go to kids who can’t keep chickens.
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Ha! On the same page is a baby alligator that my brother and I received when I was maybe 10yo.
It was acually a caiman. Grew to about 24" long and dug under or backyard fence. When we found it the next door neighbors terrer had chewed it’s head off leaving the rest of the body stuck under the fence on our side.
Lesson learned.
Only buy Sea Monkeys in the the mail.
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Wait. What do you do with this?
Do you have some guys over for the Super Bowl and then – nurse them?
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There’s a reason the company is called “Spencer Gifts” instead of “Spencer things that a rational human being might want to buy for themselves.”
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Is that code for cock fighting supply?
my roommate and I would relish watching the guy who used to hustle rare (or “rare”) coins on TV. and neither of us cared about coins whatsoever.
entertaining as hell, his showmanship was par excellence
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The gold standard on that is “The Knife Show”.
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(in Joel McHale’s voice): “Chicks, man.”
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Oh my gosh, that sounds traumatic. For you and the poor lizard. Damn.
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I’m picturing a catalog full of little brass knuckles for chickens, and sharpened titanium spurs they can clip on to their feet, and tiny leather old-timey football helmets and such. You know, stuff for chickens to purchase for themselves for self-defense purposes if they find themselves suddenly living in an urban environment. That’s probably not exactly how cock fighting works though…
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