Lose Your Job

One day, a mime is visiting the zoo and attempts to earn some money as a 

street performer. As soon as he starts to draw a crowd, the zoo keeper grabs him 

and drags him into his office.

The zoo keeper explains to the mime that the zoo's most

popular attraction, a gorilla, died suddenly and the

keeper fears that attendance at the zoo will fall off.

He offers the mime a job to dress up as the gorilla until they can get another 

one. The mime accepts the offer.

So, the next morning, before the crowd arrives, the mime puts on the gorilla 

suit and enters the cage. He

discovers that it's a great job. He can sleep all he wants, play and make fun 

of people, and he draws larger crowds than he ever did as a mime on the street.

However, eventually the crowd tires of him, and he tires of just swinging on 

auto tires. He notices that the people are paying more attention to the lion in 

the next cage. Not wanting to lose the attention of his audience, he climbs to 

the top of his cage, crawls across a partition, and dangles from the top of the 

lion's cage.

Of course, this makes the lion furious, but the crowd

loves it. At the end of the day the zoo keeper comes and gives the mime a 

raise for being such a good attraction.

Well, this goes on for some time, the mime keeps

taunting the lion, the crowd grows larger, and his

salary keeps going up.

Then, one day, when he is dangling over the top of the

lion's cage, he slips and falls. The mime is terrified.

The lion raises himself up and prepares to pounce. The

mime is so scared that he begins to run around the cage

with the lion in hot pursuit.

Finally, the mime starts screaming, "Help! Help me!"

The lion is quick and pounces. The mime soon finds him flat on his back 

looking up at the angry lion. The lion says, "Shut up, you idiot, or we'll both 

lose our jobs!"