not saying you are by any means, but the people at the petsmart here are absolute morons on the grandest scale. corporate too apparently, if they think a very well established morph with a name already is a "fancy". the one here and a different one a few counties over had very clear normals marked as "fancy". when i asked the guy about it here, he said oh it has a different pattern.

as far as mice and rats as pets, $7 is pretty normal. i work at a pet store here and we sell fancy rats for 7.99, if we ever have them ( mainly the other people just throw them in the feeder bins though ). out of my personal stock/business i sell pet rats at anywhere from $5-$10 depending what they are (fancy,rex,dumbo, and soon hairless).