I never fancied the Spongebob ornaments myself... but I may be biased. I was never allowed to watch that show (but never had any desire to, anyways).
Just the other day I was in Petco picking up some supplies for my hermit crabs and fishies (and, of course, checking out all the other animals), and as I was admiring the chameleons, I saw a family with two small kids walk by.
It looked like they'd only come for dog and cat food, since that's what their cart was full of and they were headed for the checkout, but then the little boy stopped in front of the rack of bettas.
"Can we get a fish?" he asked excitedly.
"No," his dad said.
"Why not?" his mom told him, giving her husband a "please let him have this fish or we'll never hear the end of it" look.
"Okay, sure," his dad obliged, and the little boy and his sister started jumping up and down and screaming happily. "But you have to take care of it."
They eagerly promised that they'd "take the best care of it in the whole wide world".
I thought this was adorable- but I worried that they wouldn't get the right sized tank or that they'd be told those terrible "betta cubes" (literally the size of a mug, if not smaller) were a great home for their new pet. I decided not to say anything- as usual, because last time I saw this scenario and tried to help politely, I got a bunch of sass thrown in my face ("You're just a kid! What could you know? How can a tank even be too small for a betta, they live in puddles in China or something!"). So I went over to the tarantulas and minded my own business.
When I'd finished checking out the reptiles, I decided I'd better go (I had other things to do, sadly, as much fun as looking at all the animals was). I headed to the checkout and passed the same family, who had now added one betta, some rainbow gravel, a bottle of water conditioner, and food to their cart.
"Pick out a tank," the father told his kids.
As I'd expected, they rushed off into the aisle where the impossibly tiny betta tanks are. I just kept walking, but then I heard the boy yell "Let's get the Spongebob tank!".
I sighed as I checked out, knowing exactly what tank he's talking about. It's a half gallon tank. That poor fish would not only have to live in the most miserable tiny box for the rest of his life, he'd have to live in a Spongebob box, seeing that deranged yellow sponge every day... *shudder*
That incident even further cemented my dislike of Spongebob. If I ever have kids, not only will that show be banned from my house but uttering the name of it will be equivalent to a curse word.
(Sort of went on a tangent here... I blame Spongebob.)
