AITA for allowing two teenagers to be spit on by a llama?

A petting zoo worker let a llama deliver a lesson to two unruly teens who ignored warnings and antagonized the animal. When the llama’s spit left the girl retching, the worker doubled down, refusing them access to clean up. Now, they’re wondering: did they go too far in teaching the teens a lesson?

‘ AITA for allowing two teenagers to be spit on by a llama?’

I work at a petting zoo here, and this weekend we had two teenager (around 16, boyfriend and girlfriend) who were antagonizing a llama. I told them “you might want to cut that out! Llamas spit in self-defense.” But they kind of laughed my warning off. Now, I knew that llama spit was a whole lot worse than they probably thought it was. But I decided not to tell them about that. I figured if they persisted, I’d trust the llama to teach them a lesson.

The llama was being patient. At one point it gave them a “warning spit” (just saliva) and they went “eww” and laughed about it and brushed it off, and then kept going at it. Finally, the llama had enough…and unleashed its green, defensive spit that llamas are known for. It got the girl square in the face. She dropped to her knees and started retching, and eventually threw up. Her boyfriend was gagging and ran away, towards the building that I was in.

To make things worse for them, I didn’t even let them come in to wash up in the petting zoo’s only bathroom! It was a slow day, so I just locked the doors. I told them I didn’t want that smell inside, and made them leave the farm without washing up.

AITA? The girl’s parents called me the next day and yelled at me saying that was too harsh. Maybe it was…I knew that if you don’t wash out llama spit right away the smell sinks into your skin and becomes extremely hard to remove, but I wanted the lesson to sink in as well.

Here’s the feedback from the Reddit community:

[Reddit User] −  ESH. They were warned. They deserved to be spat on and I wouldn’t fault you for allowing it to happen. It was incredibly cruel to keep them out of the washrooms. What could have been a lesson for them will just turn into an anecdote about the crazy petting zoo guy who wouldn’t let them clean themselves. They now have someone else to focus on/blame for the odor.

[Reddit User] −  ESH, you’re not the a**hole for letting the llama spit on the teenagers, but you’re kind of an a**hole for not stepping in on the llamas behalf as they were antagonizing it. That llama has very little autonomy and depends on the workers at the peering zoo to keep it safe.

Llamas RARELY spit on humans, a llama who is socialized properly won’t ever do that unless there is a baby or it is feeling very very threatened. That poor llama had to do this as a last resort because of how uncomfortable it was. You owe more to these animals you are taking care of. Source: I trained llamas as a hobby for ~7 years. Edit: vote change to ESH.

Reignbeaus −  ESH. They got what they deserved for annoying an animal. Locking the bathroom was a d**k move though.

Rrose1989 −  ESH – definately not a**hole to let the llama spit on them as you tried to warn them but refusing them the bathroom was unnecessary and tips it for me.

rockplusbird −  ESH. I work in a zoo. Every day I see people antagonize animals, so this is a situation I’m personally familiar with. Yeah, the teens are assholes for pestering the llama, but you’re also the a**hole for allowing it to continue so long that the llama felt the need to spit defensively.

You should have asked them to leave or gotten a supervisor/security to do so. It was also an a**hole move to lock the bathroom. I understand your moral point of view, but getting them kicked out of the petting zoo would have been a better, non-a**hole punishment and would have saved the poor llama from more undue stress.

DaniCapsFan −  ESH. You warned these two assholes that llamas spit in self-defense. Heck, the llama even gave a warning spit before unleashing the n**ty. You’re not an a-hole for that. You are an a-hole for not letting them use the bathroom to clean up. Surely plenty of people have washed the smell of wild animals off their skin after petting them.

CookieGamesOfficial −  NTA. They didn’t listen to you. It’s fully their fault and you warned them – if you told someone not to stand near the edge of a cliff but they did anyway and fell it wouldn’t be your fault so this isn’t either.

notwhelmed −  YTA for a couple of reasons. Firstly, you work at the petting zoo, presumably your job is to ensure the safety and well being of both the animals and the visitors. By letting the kids antagonize a llama you were derelict in your duty to the animal, and by letting them get spit on, you were derelict in your duty to the visitors.

Secondly you were a double a**hole for not letting them wash up knowing how long the stuff would sink in. Especially after my first point, that was obnoxiously petty to do so.. ​ If you were my employee I would be considering giving you a written warning for this sort of thing.

BlaireTreadway −  ESH. I am sure the child failed to tell her parents that she was tormenting the poor animal. You should have thrown them out when the llama made his warning spit indicating that he was in distress.

princepukeko −  ESH – hahaha yeah I was with you, teaching the kids some valuable life lessons …. right until you locked them out of the bathroom … you must know that was a lapse of judgement right?