2015年1月16日金曜日 - 
Josue：One of my many trips to Las Vegas (Part One)
Once upon a time many years ago, I had a pet ferret which I named Boba. Boba was a
girl, and I got her when she was about two weeks old. I had her for five years
before she got sick and passed away. Let me tell you a little bit about how I
got Boba.
As a child, I never had a pet for very long. I
remember having baby birds that we rescued from a tree my dad chopped down, but they died a few
days later. I had a turtle I found in Mexico, but it ran, well, crawled away
after a few weeks. And I’ve had plenty of fish, but they never lasted long.
After graduating from high school, my days of
wanting pets were over. I went about a decade without a pet or even the
thought of having one, until one day I suddenly discovered ferrets. I don’t
remember how it happened, but I started to do some research and soon found out
that many people had them as pets. Many ferret owners compared taking care of
ferrets to taking care of cats and dogs. Ferrets’ personalities were described
as being somewhere between cats and dogs; not as loyal as dogs, but much friendlier than cats.
Physically, ferrets are generally smaller than cats and dogs, although male
ferrets can grow to be as large as a regular-sized house cat. Ferrets are fearless
and will not back down from a fight with a larger animal.
Unfortunately, I also found out that ferrets
are illegal to own in the state of California, which is where I lived. However,
all pet stores in California carry ferret supplies, and a lot of people in
California do own ferrets. Ferrets are not sold in California, however, so if
you want to buck the law and own one, you need to buy one in a state where they are legal to
own and smuggle it
into California. So I started to look for nearby pet shops outside of
California that carried ferrets and found several in Las Vegas, Nevada.
One Saturday, I finally decided that I was
ready to get a ferret and that evening I got in my car and drove to Las Vegas. It
typically takes about four hours to drive to Las Vegas from where I was living…
I left at about 6 pm and the pet shop closed at 10 pm, so I knew there was a
chance I wouldn’t make it on time. I arrived at the pet store at 10:10pm, just
ten minutes too late. I could see some store employees still working inside, so
I tried knocking on the glass door to see if they would let me in, but they waved me off.
I had to decide on whether I should turn
around and drive the four hours back home or stay and wait for the pet store to
reopen in the morning. I weighed my options, and decided to stay. Sitting there in my car, the thought
of getting a hotel room crossed my mind. However, I wanted to save money so I then thought about finding a
nice dark place to park and just sleep in my car until morning. Suddenly the realization
that I was in Las Vegas occurred to me! I had not planned to do anything else
in “the gambling capital of the world”, but now that my attempt to get a ferret
had been delayed, I could spend the night having fun and maybe make a little
money while I’m at it.
(TO BE CONTINUED)
Once upon a time：むかしむかし
chopped down：切り倒された
crawled：はった
a decade：10年
loyal：忠実な
Physically：身体的に
back down：引き下がる
buck the law：
smuggle：密輸する
typically：一般的には
waved me off：さよなら､と手を振った
weighed：両天秤に掛けた
crossed my mind：心を横切った