Host/Security Guard

It took me a couple seconds to get the heart rate back down.

I didn't want to go home and say I got bit by an octopus today.

That beak is pretty sharp.

It can crush shells.

I called animal care to pick it up.

They put it in the exhibit.

Once it got into the water, it sat there for a couple seconds and then scurried over underneath some of the shell like octopus do.

The next morning, we get a radio call from the animal handler that takes care of that exhibit.

Barb was like, we don't put octopus in that exhibit.

I swear, I'm telling you, there's an octopus in there.

Sure enough, she takes apart the exhibit, she finds it, and she comes back and she's like,

You know, it's funny, I was thinking about it.

That octopus probably came in on one of the shale rocks that we installed a little while ago as a stowaway and has been eating all the things that I've been putting in because that's what it does at night.

It comes out and forages and hunts and then got to a size where it was too big for it and decided it would go to the next tide pool, not knowing that the tide pool was actually inside a building.

I thought, how funny is that, that this little stowaway octopus has probably been in there for a month or two, just living its best life, and no one knew.

I'm in a different job now.

Now I'm in charge of the public programs.

And thank God I don't have to patrol at night anymore.

The mystery of the octopus and the missing clams and scallops, that got solved.

I'm still working on the other mysteries.