NB: Who'd work in a zoo?

[Telo]

I see, from the packet of Corn Flakes that we'd bought in for the granddaughters, that you can win a prize of being a zookeeper for a day.

Having heard about a YTS scheme in a zoo a few years ago, I really wouldn't bother entering the competition.

On his first day of training, the new recruit was sent to clean out the aviary. Not too difficult, and no problem until he accidentally steps on, and crushes, a very rare finch. Not wanting to get in trouble he deftly picks up the finch and surreptitiously chucks it into the lion enclosure where it's quickly eaten. He returns to his supervisor, and for his next task gets sent to feed the chimps. He starts to play with the chimps throwing them fruit, letting them swing off his broom. In his exuberance however, he manages to knock a couple of chimps off balance who fall awkwardly from a tree and break their necks. "Oh no" he thinks. "I've had it now, three animals killed on my first day .. I'm bound to get sacked".

So again, while nobody is looking he picks up the chimps and throws them into the lion enclosure where they're quickly devoured. He then returns to his supervisor for his final job of the day. The supervisor rigs him out in his protective clothing and sends him to the beehives where he has to collect the honey for the zoo's tearoom. This time all seems to be going fine, until a bee gets inside his mask. Frantically he tries to swat the bee, but topples over on to the hive, smashing it and crushing all the other bees! To avoid the sack once more, he scoops up the crushed bees again throws them into the lion's enclosure. He gets away with it.

As chance would have it, a new lion arrives at the zoo on the following day. Seeing he wasn't very happy, one of the other lions asks him what's up. "What's up? I'll tell you what's up; there I was, out in the Serengeti, having a fine old time hunting gazelles and stuff, when I suddenly gets this pain in my arse, and find that someone's fired a dart into it. Next thing I know, I'm at 37.000 feet on here my way to this dump."

"Oh, don't worry", replied the other lion,"the same thing happened to me, but you'll get used to it after a while. It's really not too bad."

"I suppose so. By the way, what's the food like here ?" asks the new arrival.

"Oh, so-so" replied the other lion, "Just the usual stuff, but occasionally they give us a special treat. Like yesterday, we had finch, chimps and mushy bees."

[aquaplane]

So it was Harry Ramsden's Zoo then?