March 26 - Inner Monologue of a Trained Sea Lion That Performs at Sea World

Here we go again. 11:30 am. Showtime at Sea World. Twenty minutes of yucking it up for yet another identical crowd of camera toting parents and their oohing, ahhing easily impressed children.
Fuck my ass.
There is literally nothing I don't hate about this job: the skits, the tricks, the audience, the trainer, and my willing involvement in all of it. I can believe I actually auditioned for this job and got stressed out about the possibility that I might not get it. Yeah, that would've been a real tragedy. I would have had to stay in the communal pool and spend my day swimming, sunning myself, and eating fish. Wow, that would have sucked.
But no. Instead, I get to trot out in front of the morons twice a day and act like an asshole so the trainers can toss me enough fish to keep me alive long enough to do it again tomorrow. Speaking of which, there's my cue.
OK, people. Yes, right. I'm cute. I'm so adorable with the way I drag myself around with my front flippers and then slide. Hey, guess what, fuckies: We're sea lions. That's how we move. Unlike everything else I'm about to humiliate myself by doing, this handy little way of getting around ain't for your entertainment. It's just how we move. Hold you applause for the tricks, dummies. Jesus.
And here we go with the balancing the ball on our nose trick. And now the balancing our body weight on our front flippers and looking like complete douche bags while doing it. And now we're basically pretending to be a human family because what on earth could possibly be cuter than an animal pretending to be a person? And that's what it comes down to, isn't it? Being cute. They only like us animals if we're cute or food. Or both.
You want to know what really sucks about this gig? Everything. Seriously, man. Everything. For one thing, it's actually hard work. Balancing all my weight on one flipper is not easy at all. For another thing, as performers we're totally isolated from the rest of the group like we're freaking Chinese gymnasts or something. And it's like, hey, assholes: We're social creatures. We thrive in the company of others. But no. Separate tanks. And they probably think they're doing us a favor somehow. Twice a day during my show I can see the main sea lion pool and that fucking Sammy makes it a point to be in my line of vision every time so I can see him laughing at me and scamming on Brenda. And they're totally going to mate, you can tell. Meanwhile, I'm over here doing photo ops and barking like a jerk every time the trainer throws me a fish.
God, I suck.
And now here comes the finale where we play those Goddamned horns and set the animal liberation movement back another 25 years. But what the hell, I get a fish so it's worth it, right?
Whatever. Show's over. Thanks for coming. See you again at 2:30.