Fancy?

I was on my way out of Malaga Markets the other week after doing our weekly fruit 'n veg shopping, when I decided to take a look in the pet shop. I thought it might be nice to get a new pet mouse (RIP Penny the mouse), so I made my way to the back of the shop where the small cages are kept.

Amongst the usual rodents such as guinea pigs and rats, there was a cage marked "Fancy Mouse", which housed a very large mountain of newspaper, but no visible mouse (fancy or otherwise). Curious as to what sort of pet a fancy mouse was (and why they were charging $2 extra for him), I asked the shop keep to tell me. She said that she didn't actually know but was also interested to find out, so she started to dig through the newspaper mountain for the tenant of the cage.

After a bit of rustling, she managed to catch what appeared to be a regular mouse, a bit on the old and mangey side, but with no tail. From the strange bump on it's backside I'm guessing that this mouse was born with a tail, but had parted ways with it at some point during it's long life.

What did I learn from this experience? That you can take a damaged, inferior, or dated item, prefix the word "fancy" to it's description, charge a few extra dollars, and sucker people like me in.