Kate Oliver
Appearances
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: All In - Live from London
I was frozen with fear, I couldn't move a muscle, as he lifted the gun up to point at my face, and he said, Now, I'd never been paintballing before. I'd never wanted to go paintballing. I'd never expected to go paintballing. The only reason I was there was it was my friend's 30th birthday and he'd got the tickets as a present.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: All In - Live from London
And this in itself was surprising because neither he nor I nor the two people we'd gone with were the type. We are friends from being in the same gay show choir together. So... Our only previous engagement in sport together was choreography to Tina Turner songs. And I feel it really summed up our expectations of the event that he ended the invitation with, I hope they have pink paint.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: All In - Live from London
When we arrived, it was not as we'd expected. We got dressed up in these kind of camouflage onesies, like the big jumpsuits, and we walked down into this basement arena for round one. Now, round one is where you're just with your friends, so it's just the four of us, and you're kind of trying to work out how it all works and what to do. And we're in this huge arena.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: All In - Live from London
It's about the size of a football pitch. It's all underground. It's totally dark in there. There's these big black and neon shapes, these abstract shapes that you're meant to kind of dive behind to hide and shoot. And it's totally black and there's techno music playing. So it's silly. It's silly there. And we treat it like it's silly. We start shooting each other or trying to.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: All In - Live from London
We're rolling around on the floor. We're doing movie scenes with each other. And all this lasts right up until the point that one of us actually hits someone else. Because paintballs hurt. LAUGHTER Paintballs bruise, paintballs can break the skin if you're getting too close.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: All In - Live from London
And this is when our silliness started to turn to fear, because we knew that after this, we were going into round two, and in round two, you're not with your friends anymore, you're with groups of strangers. And as we walked up the stairs back to the waiting room, we saw all these groups of strangers, all taking it much more seriously than we were, including this group of eight teenage boys.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: All In - Live from London
about 15 or 16 years old, one of whom raised his gun up to point at me. Now, if you haven't been to Paintball before, there are two groups of people there. One is this group of teenage boys. They go every weekend. The staff know their names. They've brought their own guns. You can bring your own guns to Paintball. And they are there to pray on the week.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: All In - Live from London
And the second group of people, the weak, we are a bunch of gays who've just realized we're there for their target practice. But the reason I froze up so badly when this happened was not because I'm afraid of paint. This came from a far more primal place. I was flashing back to when I was this teenager's age, about 15 years old.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: All In - Live from London
And in school, the most terrifying thing in the world to me was teenage boys. I was the weird androgynous nerdy kid in the class. You probably remember the weird androgynous nerdy kid in your class. If you've wondered how they're doing, we're fine. I'm fine, thanks. I had this big frizzy hair, like, swept straight back. I had these thick glasses on.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: All In - Live from London
And I would walk around the edge of the playground on my own every break time with my head down, carrying my briefcase. And... Kids would shout stuff at me and they'd throw stuff at me. Once in class, they banged on the window and shouted stuff. A couple of kids came to my house one time. So it got pretty bad.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: All In - Live from London
And so my main memory of being kind of 12 to 15 is just feeling so tense all the time and just feeling like a target and wanting to hide and just wanting to disappear. And so in that waiting room, in that space, when this teenager raised that gun, I was the exact same person. I was terrified. I was so frozen. I was ashamed. I felt so embarrassed.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: All In - Live from London
I knew that in a minute my friends would notice that I was afraid of this child, and they'd be ashamed of me too. But as I panicked, something shifted. He lowered the gun, and he suddenly looked really confused. He suddenly looked very young. And he said to me, Miss, did you bring a cockroach to my school? And I did, I did. I did. I used to work in the London Zoo Schools Outreach Programme.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: All In - Live from London
And it was my job to go around schools and teach kids about endangered species and about habitats. And we would bring animals from the zoo with us, not the wild animals like the lions and tigers, but like snakes and lizards and ferrets and giant insects like these rainforest cockroaches. The cockroaches, by the way, are particularly cute animals. His name was Charlie. He was very sweet.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: All In - Live from London
And this job, this job was exactly as awesome as you are imagining right now. We would drive up to a primary school and the kids would see the van out the window and they'd all be going, the zoo's here, the zoo's here. And then we'd walk into the classroom or the assembly and we'd be like, is everybody excited? And they'd be like, yeah. It was like being a celebrity. Yeah.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: All In - Live from London
And the first day, I went to a secondary school where the teenagers are. I was definitely nervous because teenagers, as you know, are not allowed to like things and are not allowed to show that they're enjoying something. So when we went in, there was stony silence.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: All In - Live from London
But then we got out the snake, and one of the kids was really scared, but then she touched it, and it wasn't slimy like she imagined, and then she asked a question, and then they were all asking questions, and they were laughing and having fun. I just got to be that cool, popular person that I didn't get to be in school.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: All In - Live from London
And though this job was so important to me and these experiences were so big for me, I don't ever expect one of these kids to remember me after this day. Like, I'm always just going to be this vague memory of, like, the day the zoo lady came to school, you know? Like, you probably remember when the animal person came to school, right? If you've wondered how they're doing, I'm fine.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: All In - Live from London
We're fine, thanks so much. But this time... This one time I got recognized outside of work. This would change everything. Because this teenager, he leaned over to his friends, and he told them who I was, and they all started going, oh, my God, it's Zoo Lady. Zoo Lady. Zoo Lady's here. Zoo Lady's here.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: All In - Live from London
And they were talking about the ferret, and they thought it was going to bite them, but then it didn't, and it was so soft, and they were so excited, and they had such a good day, and we were all suddenly laughing. And when we walked down into that arena for round two, it was like we had eight personal bodyguard snipers next to us.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: All In - Live from London
We walked into that arena, we were haphazardly diving behind the cardboard boxes. They took up strategic positions and they were picking off people I couldn't even see at the other end of the room. Nobody got near us that day. We walked out of there completely paint-free, apart from the accidental shots we'd hit each other and ourselves. And it was amazing. It was amazing.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: All In - Live from London
It was so amazing to feel like I was that terrified kid inside. I was still there. But the people around me, they just saw me now. And they just accepted that. And now, today, I still work with young people, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't still sometimes get that jolt of terror when a young person says or does something that sparks a memory for me.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: All In - Live from London
But now I know that I can breathe, and I can accept it, and I can move on. Because I know now I am still that scared kid. I'm still that same person. But I'm not just that kid anymore. I'm Zoolady. Thank you. Yes.