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The original was posted on /r/AmItheAsshole by /u/tuzi2 on 2023-06-26 11:20:46+00:00.
I [38f] got to visit my friend recently and spent the night. One of her daughters [13f] spent a couple hours watching old episodes of The Crocodile hunter on a TV.
My friend said her daughter's been pretty interested in animals and wildlife and nature so they got her some of those to watch, since she remembers enjoying those shows as a kid and the modern versions of them don't seem as good.
I thought this was great as I actually grew up near Beerwah, Australia (where the Australia Zoo is) and we went a lot - even into my young adulthood before moving to the US for work. Got to see Steve a couple times, and later Bindi when she got older, at a couple talks / small group settings. My friend said "wow, you should totally tell my daughter about that!"
So a while later I went into the living room where the daughter was watching the shows, and I told her "I got to see Steve a couple times before he died and later Bindi," and she got excited and started asking me a lot of questions.
I told her he seemed like a great guy and as much as I could remember about the animals. Then I told her about a detail about the first "talk"/small-ish group I saw him at where he warned us that he had to help cover for a keeper who called in sick and cleaned out the primate houses right before this talk and hadn't showered yet, so we really might not a front row seat. I didn't listen and got one anyways, and...ooof, regretted it. I'm sure it was a great talk and a treasured memory looking back, but at the time all I could think about was how not to gag!
This horrified my friend's daughter more than I thought, as she went "ewww he smelled bad?" I was sorta taken aback and said "well, what do you think, being around animals all day every day! That day was worse than others I'm sure, but come to think of it he stunk pretty bad the other time I got close enough to smell him too...so did Bindi, for that matter"
My friend's daughter is apparently also very into spas and perfumes and smelling nice, and this has put a great damper on her thoughts of working with wildlife and even her enthusiasm for seeing it through a screen. My friend called me the next day and said "Of all the things to share with her did you really have to bring up how Steve Irwin smelled like monkey waste when you met him and distracted you from the talk?" She said that seemed like an inappropriate thing to bring up to a young girl and also disrespectful to Steve's memory.
But I don't think it was inappropriate to bring up, I think it's a realistic part of the work Steve did and was certainly something that stuck in my memory. If anything it made me respect the work he did more!
AITA?