New York Goes To Work: Lions and Tigers. No Bears. Oh My!

This week New York Goes to Work as an exotic animal trainer. Gee, I never woulda guessed. So I tried to mirror the exotic animal trainer job, I really did. I found a circus, and sought out their trainer, but he was too busy trying to keep his face from being chewed off.

So I decided to train a different kind of exotic animal. I’d heard these were high;y trainable, so I loaded up on dolla bills, and headed out to the place that I heard they could be found. It was a wild success!

Down Boy. 

New York wants to win that paycheck this week. When she finds out the job is exotic animal trainer, she is so excited.

What the hell is wrong wich’all?!? 

So she’s arrived at Amazing Animal Productions. You can tell she’s freaked out because she can’t even get her lines right. “No, no, no, no. I don’t want no lion mountain eatin me.” Heeheehee. And then she says she knows they like dark meat. Bwahahaha. If she was this funny all the time I might actually enjoy this show.

The owner Sid looks on in disgust as New York tries to run up a muddy hill in spike heels and a miniskirt. She calls up to him asking if he’s gonna help her and he says, “Negative. You’re here for a job.” I think I like Sid already. He tells us that this is one of the most dangerous jobs in the world, and New York is going to have to earn that money. Yep. I’m liking Sid alright.

As Sid is giving the opening spiel, New York catches sight of something that makes her squeal. Actually, she doesn’t squeal so much as cry and carry on like a baby. She thinks it a big ass hairy mouse or something. It is in fact a pot bellied pig.

You think I’m scary? Take a look in the mirror bitch! 

Sid has noticed already that calm is not in New York’s vocabulary. Wow, Sid. You’re good. I could have never figured that out so quickly. I love that he has absolutely no sympathy for her as he tells her to relax. He tells her that they’re miniature teacup pot bellied pigs, and New York wants to know if they’re part rat. 

On my mudda’s side, we don’t like to talk about it. 

As Sid leads her inside to meet the rest of the staff, he tells us that the animals they’ll be working with today are carnivores, and if she acts afraid they’ll sense it. “She’ll become prey, and it won’t be pretty.” He is so fucking serious, man.

At Amazing Animals they teach and train all types of animals like bears, lions, wolves, tigers. The most dangerous animals in the world. Where do the miniature teacup pot bellied pigs fit in? He tells her it’s important for her to remember that these animals have the ability to dismember or kill her.

Ugh. I am soooo not in the mood to be dismembered today. 

Sid introduces her to the team she’ll be working with today. There’s Trevor, JJ and Tracy. She’ll work with Trevor training a four hundred pound male African lion named Romeo, a hawk with JJ and Tracy, and last but not least, she’ll be working with Sid himself and Sheer Khan the tiger.

Sid tells her if she’s got what it takes she’ll get the check. New York likes the sound of that. BUT if she doesn’t succeed with the tasks today she’ll be taking a walk out of there and will never be asked back again. Oh, and no check. Sid means business. Trevor tells her this is her last chance. If she turns her back on the cat one more time it’ll be marked as a fail.

Sid sends New York off to get changed into her khakis. She hopes the khakis are “toof proof”. Who writes her lines? Once she’s all suited up, they’re ready to start the day. They head over to where Trevor and Romeo are and New York wants to know if Romeo can smell blood. Sid continues to be awesome. “Of course.” New York says, “Maxi pads, please don’t fail me now.” Yeah. That was a bit of an over share there, New York. 

The first task is to brush the lion’s mane. Basically they’re trying to ease her into being around the animals before she has to do any actual training. Trevor tells her to walk over and that she shouldn’t turn around and walk away. She starts to head over. And then turns around and walks away. Trevor tells her she’s going to piss the cat off if she keeps dilly dallying. 

She says the lion’s looking at her. Trevor says, “That’s okay. That’s what they do.” She wants to know if he’s legally blind. Why? Fuck if I know. He’s not legally blind, he has excellent eyesight. 

She barely touches the lion with the brush, standing as far away from it as possible. Trevor thinks it was the most pathetic attempt he’s ever seen. The lion does a little roar and New York is uncomfortable. Did you know she’s uncomfortable? She’s uncomfortable. She tells us the lion scared the you know what out of her.

She’s walking away hunched over, saying ‘I gotta take a shit, Oh my God.” Could she be any more ridiculous? Trevor is pissed y’all. He told New York not to turn her back, and she keeps doing it over and over. Well, duh. We all saw that coming Trevor. Maybe you shoulda watched this shitty show before she showed up there and you’d have a better idea of what to expect. Anyway, FAIL!

Let’s go to a commercial break so we can see what jobs we have to choose from for next week.

I wish the producers would let us vote on whether or not to cancel this show. I think I might actually spend my money on that vote.

Back to the show! New York’s next task is going to be learning how to fly birds of prey. New York was hoping for a bird like the one on the cereal box, but instead she gets Nike the Hawk.

Sid continues on his streak of awesome by telling New York that Nike’s beak is made for tearing flesh. She’s a ferocious machine when she’s flying and attacks. Interesting fact from Sid: This bird is also known as the wolf of the sky because they are the only birds that hunt in packs. Who would have thought New York’s show would be educational?

Sid explains that they wear a glove because the bird’s talons are razor sharp. It’s also apparently important to keep your fist above your elbow because otherwise the bird will crawl off the glove and go onto your bare skin. If that happens it will puncture your skin, “It will bleed and it will get infected.”

Information Overload 

JJ and Tracy will be working with New York on this task. She’ll need to fly the bird down to Tracy and get it to come back up to her. Sounds simple, right? But New York catches sight of something out of the corner of her eye. 

JJ tells her it’s just a butterfly. Hahahahaha. JJ flies Nike down to Tracy, and then gives New York a glove so she can have a go at it. She’s going to have to bait the glove with quail. Yep, you guessed it; she’s squeamish about it and starts ewwwwwwing all over the place. 

Oh come on. You’ve touched nastier things than raw quail. 

Then JJ breaks it to her that she needs to touch the raw quail with her bare hand. Again, I say she’s touched worse.

I’d rather touch a thousand raw quails 

It reminds me of the time Frank the Entertainer tried to make me touch his balls 

JJ doesn’t know how she’ll be able to handle the hawk if she can’t handle the bait. He ends up squishing it into place for her. We hear again about how if New York doesn’t do this right the hawk will crawl up her arm blahblahblah puncture blahblahblah bleed. Thanks JJ, but I don’t have a problem retaining information I just heard two minutes ago.

She’s taking her sweet ass time doing it, and he tells her she’s teasing the bird. She finally does it and the bird flies over to her. And then she flies the bird back to Tracy. That was pretty cool, I must admit. I’d love to try that sometime. Maybe my next trip to local Ren Faire. New York’s excited that she did, and I’ll give her this one.

Can we keep her boss? 

Time for the last task. Looks like Trevor is going to be helping out on this one too. Sid walks with New York over to a van. He tells her inside is by far the most dangerous animal on the ranch. When he says calm, he means extremely calm, when he says don’t walk weird, well, don’t walk weird. She’s already tuning him out and trying to figure out what’s in the van. If she had better memory retention she’d know it was a fucking tiger since he already TOLD her she’d be working with a tiger.

Sid tells her she best be paying attention to him. Dude, you are talking way too much. Her brain cannot retain that amount of information. Scare her straight, Sid. “You don’t hear about people dying from some of these other animals…” Wait! Hold up a minute. I think I’ve heard about people being killed by lions. I’ll give him the hawk may not have killed any people, but lions, yeah. Anyway, the gist of this is that a tiger could kill you. 

Thank you Captain Obvious 

This is her big test. How well does she listen. Hahahahaha. How well does she respond. Right. How well does she learn. Shit Sid, just fail her now and we can both be on our way. 

She’s already nervous and claims that she doesn’t like the way the tiger is looking at her. I want to know how many different ways we can do this. I mean, really? Again with the freaking out and not wanting to do something? I fucking bored of this shit. 

Oh my God you guys, I seriously love these people. They play the best trick on her by acting like Sid has lost control of the tiger, and it’s jumped on and knocked down Trevor. Sid yells out to call 911, and New York is seriously freaked out and crying. Is it wrong that I laughed my ass off?

If loving this is wrong, I don’t wanna be right 

She is not amused at all when she finds out they were joking with her. I’m still laughing. I think I might be drunk though. Sid’s not going to ask her to do the same stunt. Oh, how I wish he would that would make me pee my pants. 

What New York is going to work on with the tiger is training him so that he’ll be able to jump over a car for an upcoming movie. It basically involves getting him to jump from the ground to a pedestal and then from that pedestal to another higher platform. 

I’d rather see the tiger try to train her. 

New York’s gonna be the bait hold the bait stick. Once he jumps from one pedestal to the other, she will pay him by letting him eat the meat off the stick. She wants to know if he’s going to mistake her for the piece of meat. Sid just laughs at her. Hee. 

I wouldn’t eat you if you paid me. 

Trevor tells her to go ahead and put a chicken neck on the end of the bait stick. So she naturally tries to stick the entire bait stick in the chicken neck bag. She is so zany. We get more ewwwws as she has to touch it with her bare hands. She does it without too much fuss. 

New York gets the cat to do the stunt, but drops the bait stick as he’s trying to eat the meat. And then she starts to walk away. Sid says it doesn’t get any worse than that. “It’s like encouraging the cat to jump down right beside you, take the bait and then chew you up.” I understand. I get hella pissed when anyone tries to fuck around with my food.

They make her re-bait the stick and pay him again, and now she’s crying. Like really really crying. And for a minute I feel bad for her. And it passes. It may have been gas I think. Sid tells her she did everything right except for dropping the dang bait stick. “When you’re done crying and wetting your pants and whatever you’re doing, we’re gonna do it again.” Have I mentioned that Sid is awesome?

I want my mommy! 

New York doesn’t want to do it again but they are not taking no for an answer. She’s praying to Jesus to help her, and Trevor tells her that he’s right there (Trevor, not Jesus) and that he’s not gonna leave her. She does it right and gets a passing mark for this task.

Evaluation time. I don’t even know why they bother with this. It’s up to Sid anyway, why even go through the pretense of everyone having their say? Sid wants to know if there’s anything she’d like to say. You bet she does. She tells them touching raw chicken with her bare hands was very very challenging. But she loves animals! And she hopes she gets paid.

Let’s see what the team thought. Tracy says it was great meeting her and fun working together. She really liked having another girl on the team. Tracy babbles on and on and I don’t care. Ultimately, she votes yes for New York. JJ votes yes as well. Trevor says she was terrified and twitchy working with the cat. He brings up the fact that she kept turning her back on it repeatedly even after he told her not to do that. Trevor votes no.

It’s all up to Sid. He tells her that she made some critical mistakes today. Life and death mistakes. He’s on the fence. He says that as the day went on she became more confident and was listening better. He says he could use some help. JJ calls in Nike the Hawk, and she is holding something in her talon. It’s the check for ten thousand dollars. New York gets paid. She is overjoyed. I actually didn’t begrudge her getting paid this time.

Off she runs to her SUV giggling like a little girl. Sid is still awesome. As she’s leaving he says under his breath. “Greedy bitch.” You got that right Sid.

And thus ends another episode. What will New York have to do next week? Will it involve crying, ewwwing, or running away? Does anyone give a rat’s hairy behind? Unfortunately I will be watching. Will you?

SWAK, PottyMouth