Here's the thing

The zoo isn't my gig.  Yes, I live here, but otherwise...not so much.  I mean, think about it.  When he was still networking sales guy, and even when he became network equipment training guy, no one expected me to know every little thing about what he did all day.  How many of you know every detail of your spouse's jobs, in effect meaning that you could do them too if your significant other really had to take the bus test, and got hit by a real live bus?

We did get married, and we did do the whole traditional vows thing.  Ok, so it was in the living room with a justice of the peace who for some unknown reason kept calling him Dirk, but...nowhere do I remember promising that when he became the zookeeper it meant that so did I by proxy.  Yet, I constantly get asked questions about the zoo that I am for some reason expected to be able to answer.  "What kind of animals do you have there?"  Um, bunches of them?  "What do they eat?"  Food?

Mostly, I just try really hard not to embarrass myself, or the zookeeper.  Unfortunately, I rarely succeed.  It isn't that I'm stupid or anything.  Ask most of the people who know me (well, talk to me first and I'll tell you the ones to ask) and they'll tell you that I'm actually pretty smart.  It's just that animals aren't my deal.  I try to be interested, I really do, but after about five minutes my eyes start to glaze over, I get bored, and start looking for the funny. It's my wayward sense of humor, I know.  It gets me into trouble a lot, because apparently there are times when witty isn't appropriate.  I have seen this on enough performance evaluations to know it's true.

Case in point, about being able to be embarrassing without even trying.  A couple of summers ago the daughters grew out of those inflatable ring pools, so we went with one that is nothing more than a vinyl bladder supported by metal posts.  We would have loved to be able to get a real above ground pool, the kind you don't have to put up and take down every year, but here's the truth, from me to you.  There is absolutely a reason why charitable organizations are called Non Profit.  Hint, hint.  If you want to make mega millions, don't start a zoo. Ever.

Anyway, the first year we had the suspended bladder pool, the daughters kept knocking each other off  taking turns climbing the cheesy pool ladder and jumping in. (My daughters love each other.  I swear they do.  Someday.  In an alternate universe.)  I love Craigslist.  You would too, if Non-Profit was solely responsible for your spending mulah on things like...everything.  Cheap and pre-owned is The Way to Go.  (Ask me how I got my Jag...car, not cat.  Yet.)  So, scanning Craigslist one day I found a really cool pool staircase/platform/enclosed thingy, just down the street, for the seriously low price of $25.  No joke.  You can't even buy the pressure treated to build it for less.  All we need to do is show up with cash.  Oh, and haul it away.  Ourselves.  No problem!

After a couple of days two weeks of trying to find time when the zookeeper was home and available to go fetch it so the daughters would stop fighting over who got to jump off the cheesy ladder get more enjoyment from their backyard pool, we finally have an hour to go pick it up.  Me, and the zookeeper.  He shows up for our date (hey, when your man works 24/7, five minutes alone together can be considered a date) decked out in his zoo attire.  Uniform shirt, khaki shorts.  Me?  Open toed sandals to show off the pedicure I gave myself earlier.  This will be important in a minute.

The people doing the selling recently bought the house, and have had no time yet to do anything, other than decide that they want to sell the pool and pool stuff that came with the house.  I mean, no time to do anything...like, mow the freaking lawn.  We pull up in the Zoomobile, and the zookeeper spends the first few minutes doing the whole intro thing, where the fng (in this case the new home/owner/pool deck thingy seller/obvious non-parent) asks all the usual questions about where, when, how, what animals...yaddah yaddah yaddah.  Finally, we are able to drive around the back, unmowed, 40, and the homeowner (a pretty big guy) disappears into his house to eat his dinner.  I hop out, look at the structure, and remember my retail days of putting fixtures together and taking them apart again.  Oh, yeah.  We got this.

We examine it from this way and that, and the zookeeper decides that by unscrewing this part, and lifting, we can get the top in, load the base and legs, and be on our way.  Uber Virgo me checks and rechecks what he's pointing to (when it comes to building stuff, the zookeepr is great at demo.  The reconstruction part not so much, so I have gotten in the habit of checking his work) and decides that, yup, it will go as planned.  And, it does.  All the way up until it comes time to move the legs.  I'm standing there, holding my end and waiting for the go-ahead to back up, when out of nowhere (ok, so out of the cement base the leg was in) comes this HUGE snake!  I mean, it was ginormous.  It had to be at least six inches long (I'm no angel. I had a life before I married the zookeeper.  Trust me when I tell you that when it comes to judging inches...um, yeah...) and was headed right for my toes!  All six inches of garter snake full of attitude with a Napolean complex and an axe to grind, rearing up like a King f*cking cobra and...hissing at me?  Oh, hell no.  I dropped my end of the base and screamed like the girly girl that I really am, turned tail and hauled my little ass out of the way, using every sprinting tactic I learned in four years of playing half-back on the varsity soccer team eight million years ago.

Here's the thing.  I sing.  With a group and everything.  I even took lessons for a bit. So, when I say my shrieks were at fortissimo, I'm not joking.  I hoofed it as fast as my open toed sandals would take me, back to the Zoomobile, vaulted into the passenger seat and locked the doors for good measure.  The home owner/big guy came thruough the back door at a run to see what the screaming was about.  Should he call 911?  Was there some sort of injury?  Was blood involved?

Meanwhile, there's the zookeeper, Maine born and raised, and so used to dealing with 20 ft snakes on a daily basis...shaking his head and apologizing for the overreaction of his wife.  The homeowner/big guy goes back inside (why, oh why, couldn't he have offered to help? Asshole.  Wait, did I say that out loud?)  The zookeeper comes over to the Zoomobile, where I'm slouched down in my seat, vowing never to come out, at least until we are back in our own driveway...dumb, I know, since there really are 20 ft snakes at the zoo...and motions for me to put down the window.  NO.  I shake my head.  Eye roll from him, and I open the door a crack.

Me:  "Is it gone?"  "Yes.  You scared the piss out of it and it fled into the woods."

Me:  "Are you sure?  Which direction did it go?"  This is canny on my part, because I have a photographic memory.  So I knew which direction it came from, where I was standing when it attacked got frightened out of it's hidey hole, and where it was likely to go in it's haste to escape the insane screaming woman it found.  I got the "Seriously" look, and reached down deep.  Time to put the big girl panties on.  I really wanted this pool deck, because I was really sick of the fighting, pushing, hair pulling interested in making sure the daughters had a great time swimming in their pool.

This is where I'm brave, even if the zookeeper (and everyone else in the known universe) doesn't get it.  I climbed down out of the Zoomobile, open toed sandals and all, and very carefully picked my way back over to the base.  Scanning every inch of ground as I went.  We got the thing loaded into the truck, even if it took about twenty minutes longer than it should have, and even if I jumped at every little brush of grass on my ankles.

We still have that pool deck thingy.  And, I also enjoy jumping off it on a hot summer day.