Bentley is having a special visitor tomorrow

A few weeks ago a colleague of mine was getting promoted and her kids came to the office for the ceremony. She brought them to my cube to show them the pictures I have of Bentley. Her 7 year old son, G, was obsessed with Bentley. He asked me a million questions and almost made his mom late to her promotion ceremony.

And as soon as the ceremony was over he came right back to my cube to talk to me more about tigers (his mom later commented to me that he didn't even stop to get a cupcake or cookie before heading to my cube, which is apparently unusual for him). I also showed him pictures of great whites and the great white tracker app I have on my phone. I asked him if he liked sharks and he said "Yes, I like tiger sharks." Haha!

Finally his mom was like "dude, we have to go home" and I pulled out some photos I had printed of Bentley and told G "I want you to have my tiger. I'll pay for his food but he's your tiger. And you have to share with your sisters." (He has a 13 year old sister with pink highlights like me and a 2 month old sister who's probably not going to care about Bentley for a while, but I didn't want any of the kids to feel slighted).

The next morning my colleague said "G remembered everything you told him about tigers and I ordered him some books on tigers. He's so excited!"

Anyway, on monday my colleague said G wanted to go to the sanctuary this weekend to see Bentley. I arranged the visit and the sanctuary is going to do a bunch of cool stuff for the kids and give them a special tour. My colleague promised to take a bunch of pictures of Bentley for me (between the road to the sanctuary, which is a dirt road the last 4 miles, being flooded for most of the spring / summer and impassible, and then my broken foot, and traveling, and trying to arrange a time with the sanctuary to visit, it's been hard to pin down a weekend to go see him).

I'm going next saturday to see Bentley and talk to the sanctuary owners about my charitable giving plans and Bentley's trust fund. And, ummmmm, I told the sanctuary owners the next time they have 2 baby tigers up for adoption I would adopt them. You can't have three tigers unless you have two. And you can't have two tigers unless you have one.

Then I talked to the owner about toys for Bentley and his brother. I'm going to buy them each an indestructo ball because that's a tiger's favorite toy ever. And then she told me to also buy some expensive perfume because apparently tigers LOVE expensive perfume more than the scent enrichment shit you can buy for the balls.

She said "Honey, tigers have the most expensive taste of any exotic animal. They will not play with cheap toys."

I love that about my tiger.

I am so excited to go into the office on Monday and hear G's reaction to the sanctuary. I know he and his sister A are going to love it!