Stupid animal...

The Sea Life Center was closed, and had been for over an hour. The lights were off, and I was in the Underwater Viewing area, where the only light in the room was what filtered in through the sea lion, alcid, and harbor seal tanks. I had finished cleaning the bathrooms with half an hour to spare before my shift ended, and so I had decided to wipe down the tanks one last time before heading home for the evening.

I started with Woody's tank. Woody is the Center's male sea lion. If you've never seen a sea lion before, I can describe one for you with one word: big. Woody may be the exception to this description, not because he's much bigger than average, but simply because he can be seen from up close, since he loves to chill out right by the glass, where he can see people passing by. The only adjective I know of that would accurately describe Woody would be the Latin word ingens. The closest English translation to this word, as my Latin teacher so delicately put it so many years ago, was something along the lines of "honkin' HUGE!!!"

Woody weighs 1,500 pounds and is roughly ten feet long. His head is about the size of my entire torso, and his head is dinky compared with the rest of him. I've seriously seen cars smaller than this animal. When people see Woody, they automatically think, "Oh my gosh, that is a big animal!" It doesn't matter if people don't speak English, or even if they have pet elephants at home. It's one of the lesser-known laws of physics. People see Woody and think, "Oh my gosh, that is a big animal!" just like they fall in the opposite direction when they get pushed, just like they close their eyes when a sudden blast of air hits them in the face, and just like they wet themselves when they're scuba-diving and they see an animal the size of Woody charging at them.

So I began wiping down Woody's tank, and Woody, who was bored now that the people were gone and he was no longer the center of attention, came over to watch. He stuck his face right up against the glass where my rag was, then floated up, took a deep breath, and gently sank down in front of my rag again. He blew a few bubbles, went up for more air, and sank down slowly again, staring at me.

With his enormous face only inches from mine, I became uncomfortably aware of the fact that a) my entire head would fit in his mouth, and b) if he decided he didn't like me, he could probably charge at the six-inch-thick acrylic, smash it apart, and squash me flat before I could even blink an eye.

The ingens animal floated back up and sank slowly down again, and I found my hand involuntarily slowing down as I stared up at Woody and thought, "Oh my gosh… that is a BIG animal!" We stared at each other for a few seconds, neither of us moving, and then, abruptly, he bared his teeth and jerked his head, charging at the glass, stopping just before he smashed into it.

I didn't see him stop. I screamed and leaped about four feet diagonally up and back. I looked up to see him float up a little bit higher, something that was unmistakably a pinniped smirk across his enormous face. Then he dropped down to the bottom of the tank and settled down in his favorite corner, with his eye pressed up against the glass.

Once my heart rate had slowed down enough to function again, I got up off the floor to continue wiping down the tank. Woody stared at me, but didn't move any more. Pretty soon, the only spot left to clean was the corner where Woody was resting with his eye up against the glass. Veeerrryyy sssllooowwllyyy, I knelt down by the corner and began wiping, making no sudden movements for fear of startling him. Not, I suppose, that someone like me could really scare an animal the size of Woody. Maybe I was just scared of him deciding I was annoying and that he should charge the glass for real and break me apart.

I wiped the glass, and Woody watched, about six inches away, not moving anything but his eyeball. Right up until I finished the corner and started to take the rag away. And then he jerked abruptly, spinning to face me, and shooting right up towards my face.

I vaulted about six feet back, nearly smashing into the row of chairs placed near the exhibit to allow people a place to rest while they watched this monster, and scrambled on all fours to get far away and around one of the pillars by the fish tank. As I settled down, urging my heart to start going again, I poked my head cautiously around the corner of the pillar. Woody was floating about halfway up, watching me through the glass, with his mouth open. I swear to Torvanos I could hear him laughing at me.

Stupid animal.