Who would've guessed tigers can spray pee so far?

Yesterday we took a sweet little family outing to the circus, which is in town and pitched a short walk from Hunton Bridge. We were all pretty excited on our walk there; Bailey loves a good circus and I enjoy her enjoying herself, and Simon enjoyed the 50% off admission coupon I found.

We weren't disappointed. There animals galore, Bailey won a raffle resulting in her receiving a very large Scooby Doo, in addition she got to have her photo taken with an elephant, and we saw some friends there, so at least until the second part of the show we were in good form. The second half started with a Bengal tiger show, featuring five beautiful tigers and one rather portly but sharply dressed trainer. It seems one of the tigers wasn't in the mood and s/he was having a bit of a discourse with tiger trainer. This really just involved a bit of hissing on the tiger's part and a bit of the stink eye from the trainer. That was all until the tiger was near our side of the ring (where we were in the front row, of course) and took a jump away from us whilst urinating. As Bailey tells it, the tiger jumped then weed in our faces. I had no idea tigers urniated in a spray format, a spray that travels about six feet. Simon got it town his front and side, I had it on my jacket and all over my large handbag which was on my lap, and Bailey got some on her arm.

Shock quickly lead to repulsion, when the stink hit us. Tiger urine smells like nothing I've experienced. Not like Thomas (our housecat) urine, or when Thomas and Percy (RIP) peed as kittens learning to use the litter box. It doesn't smell like general animal urine at the zoo, farm, vet, or other animal gathering places. It doesn't even smell like the man who used to live in front of Boots the Chemist on Tottenham Court Road (the old Boots location, next to the Dominion Theatre) and masturbated in his sleeping bag. It's far worse than all of these. It smells very savoury, like yeast and salt and an added mix of strong herbs simmering in rotten meat broth. It's gross. And we had to sit through the rest of the show and walk home smelling like Bengal tiger piss. And because we were in parent mode, we couldn't even release the frustration and disgust in the form of expletives.