True Story

I volunteered at the Audubon Zoo as a Junior Keeper/Keeper Aide until I was 15-years-old. There I was able to work with several different kinds of animals. I befriended the sea lion trainer, Carolyn, who was a bit older than me and sooooo awesome! It was great to watch her with those guys, she was very very good at what she did.

Part of her duties included "Asian Domain" which had several types of animals in it, including Garth the Lion.

One day, I got to go help Carolyn behind the scenes in Asian Domain! The way it works, all the animals stay in their inside homes at night, and go to the outside exhibits during the day. There is a hallway that you can walk down to access all the inside rooms. There are chains that you can open and lower the animals's gates from this hallway so that you never come in direct contact with the animals  themselves. SO, to let an animal outside, you open the gate to it's outside enclosure, open the one to it's inside enclosure, and they run through the passageway from inside to outside, and you close the gate behind them. Look, I have a picture.

At least, you're supposed to close the gate to the outside exhibit after the animal runs in there. But somebody must have not done it all the way, or something, because Garth was in his passageway when we came in!

This wouldn't have been that big of a deal if there wasn't a very thin sheet metal door for human access to the hallway. And if Carolyn didn't love Garth so much. You see, Carolyn was fascinated by him, and before she was able to work with him, she would every day go eat her lunch or whatever outside his exhibit and watch him. Stare at him. For days and days. Come to find out, this makes a lion think you're threatening, and Garth Hated Carolyn. She stopped when she realized it was happening, but by then it was too late.

SO, Garth realized Carolyn was just on the other side of this thin door, and kept trying to bang down the door to get at her! She couldn't leave the lion loose in case someone else walked in, and I wouldn't leave her, so she kept running to the roof to lure him back to the outside exhibit while I kept trying to close the exhibit door behind him fast enough to keep him in there. BUT he knew what was going on! He would see the gate closing and dash back in the passageway, banging down the metal door.

And then, it worked, he got the door down, and was loose in the hallway with us. And then he saw us and then...

We died.

THE END

(ending loosely based on Shel SIlverstein's "True Story")