28.
Many of the “cute” animals are not very nice — and they smell.
“My Dad used to work in the carnivore section in Edinburgh Zoo. As it turns out, red pandas are vicious.”
“Otters are mean as fuck, especially females. They will try to bite you when you go into their habitat.”
“A fight will break out between the chimps most days. They’re fucking vicious!”
“I worked at a ‘dolphinarium’ one summer, caring for the resident five bottlenose dolphins. One of the adolescent males was a huge asshole. Any opportunity to launch a yoga ball three feet in diameter at your head at 15mph — he’d do it. And then he’d dash away slapping the service of the pool with his fluke like a nuke’d gone off, to retrieve more toys to try and disfigure you, while leaving you cursing at him for a moment and then running full speed for cover when you noticed he’d just surfaced with another toy to aim at you.”
“Seals smell awful, and the smell is extremely pungent and settles into your clothes and your hair. You smell like seals for days. Every day after a shift, I felt like I had to go home and burn my clothes.
Although cute, don’t forget that these little guys are wild animals, and them fuckers can BITE. Not a day didn’t go by that I at least narrowly avoided getting chomped on. One of my coworkers actually had to go to the hospital because her joints swelled with fluid after one bite. I got bites on my hand, arm, and another colleague of mine even got one dangerously close to the lady parts. In all honesty, it was kind of scary. The fact that there was a high chance of them biting you didn’t mean you weren’t expected to still stick your hand in and swab their wounds, or give them fluids, or tube feed them. When I first started, I was being too hesitant and taking too long, and my coworker actually said to me, ‘You can’t be scared of them. You have to just do it. If they bite you, it doesn’t hurt that bad…’ She was wrong, it fucking hurts.”
“Every animal smells really funky because all they do is roll around in their shit. I remember my first time going into a lion cage. I had to put on hospital scrubs and a mask on. The guy in charge told us it’s for quarantine purposes and because they stank like hell. Right before we exited, he made us take off our masks. Fun chap.”
In particular… “Penguins smell awful.”
And… “Penguins are so goddamn stabby with their faces.”
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