Lived Through This

The ‘Tiger King’ Informant Was My Coworker at Petco

A pet store-y about animals, friendship, and pot brownies

Photo courtesy of Netflix.

Feast your eyes upon the inexplicably idolized, habitually repulsive Joseph Maldonado-Passage, street name (yes, like a hard drug) “Joe Exotic.” He’s the one in Netflix’s Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness with whiskers. I mean, he’s the one with blue-green eyes and platinum blonde hair. Wow, no. Not that one. He’s the predator in snazzy stripes. Okay, fine. He’s the one wearing sunglasses on his head— that should narrow it down.

I suited up for a deep dive into the savage subculture of big cat collecting after a friend sent a link to stream the offering along with an equation: “Joe Exotic’s style + Oklahoma + cats = April” (that’s me, I’m April). Simple math, really. And speaking of simple, I’ve always felt like the term “big cat” (indicating members of the genus Panthera) seemed like a minimizing misnomer. You just don’t hear people referring to wolves as “big dogs,” yet that is exactly what they are. *taps temple*

Tiger King unfolds like hot, meaty heaps from a sloppy joe as we’re introduced to the exotic animal-hoarding megalomaniacs who will light up your living room (with arson, not charisma) and numb your butt for seven arguably riveting hours…