There are many, many, many duties a zookeeper has to perform every day, but arguably the most important is this: keeping the animals' cage locked.
A pair of as yet unnamed zoo helpers from Leesburg Animal Park, Virginia, discovered this fact the hard way after forgetting to lock up the zebra enclosure recently.
Cue frantic calls to the police as local commuters were shocked to discover stripey black and white horses cantering alongside them as they drove down the road.
The animal park itself is keen to point out that the two guilty parties are not directly employed by the zoo - probably because Leesburg is getting a name for itself after a serval - a rare African cat - ran into a car after escaping last year.
Zoo officials managed to capture the zebras thanks to some well-aimed tranquiliser darts, and thankfully no humans or animals were hurt throughout the incident.
WATCH a video report from 10Wavy.com: