Actually I thought he was just being HEAVILY Sarcastic.

I do still pick up some stuff from PetCo on occasion because it's usually cheap, but I use my OWN judgement on what to buy or not.

Shane H wrote: I can easily overlook the smaller selection when I consider the knowledge of the staff.

There was no  at the end of that remark so I imagine that the Petco close to you has a better staff than the one's I've been in.  I in no way intend this to sound rude, but the ones I've been in have had nothing much to sell in thier saltwater tanks and the 16 year olds that run the dept, when you can find one, can't even catch a fish, much less tell me anything about it.  I must admit I haven't been in a Petco for a while because of having this experience a couple times in a row so maybe things have changed since then.  Maybe the staff from your store will move to the new one their building by my place.

I have the same problem at Marine Aquatics.  Everytime I go in there, there is no one there to help me.  I have to search all over the place to find an employee and then they either don't want to help me or have no knowledge about the livestock.  I can never get anyone there to talk to me. 

Just kidding of course.  As anyone who has been there knows, Eric and Arjen are always ready and willing to help out.  They are one of my favorite stores and are definately tops in customer service.  They are very knowledgable about the hobby and are more than willing to share that knowledge with the rest of us.

Also, many of us are ready to say "We are lucky to have so many great LFS to choose from.", but do we really understand how lucky we are.  Many people in many places have almost no choice except the internet.  That makes it hard to say, I need this today to fix a problem.  For instance, I would be interested to know how many local LFS Travis in Wyoming has to choose from.