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Monday, May 15, 2006

Twelve Monkeys (minus Ten)... 


Before we get started with today's (harrowing) tales of primates and their very, very creepy affinity for their own waste products, I feel that should state clearly that I really hate going to the zoo...Really, really hate it...Capital "H" brand Hate...Anyway, some of you out there (you know: the "batshit insane" ones) upon reading that sentiment might be thinking "right on, man! Them animals are OPPRESSED! STICK IT TO THE MAN!" Certainly, if you're thinking that that's the reason I hate the zoo, you would be way off base. I guess the best way to explain my distaste for the zoo is to say that there are three kinds of animals in the world: eatin' animals, starin' animals and animals which have the privilege of eatin' or starin' at the previous two. As most of you are probably already aware, I REALLY like eatin' them "eatin' animals" (mmm, baby sheep) but, while I admit that penguins can be pretty damn entertaining what with their keystone kops style shenanigans (also: goings on), starin' at animals just isn't my thing..."Ooh, wow, look at that hippo take a dump." Simply riveting. Conversely, If the zoo would allow me to eat that hippo's liver (with fava beans, blah blah Chianti, slurping sound), I would TOTALLY be there every week...Mmmm, penguin...

Anyhow, let's get to them monkey stories, shall we?..

My parents were married in Grand Junction, Colorado in 1969. Seriously, like THE DAY OF THE WEDDING, My dad was transferred to Colorado Springs (where I now reside) by Westland Theatres. Due to this, my parents simply decided to kill two birds with one stone, so to speak, and honeymoon in Colorado Springs. At some point during said honeymoon, in a moment of touristy inspiration, mom and dad visited the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo (America's only Mountain Zoo!). Back then, some of the outside cages (where large jungle cats are now kept) were where the zoo's population of monkeys, including a very large gorilla, resided. My father, upon seeing this gorilla, decided to have some fun and see if he could "rile that monkey up some." Predictably, as my dad (who was and is a large man, in excess of 300 pounds) proceeded to beat his chest and lope around and such, the gorilla became "angry." Soon after the inception of my father's monkey-mocking escapade, the gorilla chose himself a large, moist "projectile" and, displaying remarkable monkey accuracy and significant (monkey) velocity, nailed my father up high, coating him in a layer of warm poo from roughly the shoulders on up to the top of his big melon head. My mother then had the dubious honor of driving back to the motel with smelly ol' dad hanging out of the car window, acting as a very soiled reminder of how not to act around very large monkeys.

This having happened to my father well before I was born, of course, means that I did not learn any such lesson that day about rilin' up monkeys and the resultant consequences. Nay, my angry gorilla lessons had to be learned the not-so-hard way at that same damn zoo about 8 years ago. On that day back in 1998, I was with my wife who, at that time, was not yet my wife and who was looking after a couple of young children as a favor to one of her friends...Babysitting, in essence, except for how neither of the two girls were babies and they sure as Hell wouldn't sit ANYWHERE for very long...Anyway, In a vain attempt to distract the younger (and significantly more psychotic) of the two kids, we decided to take both of them up to the zoo and then to the Will Rogers Shrine (which is up the mountain from the zoo) in the hopes that, if nothing else, the extreme change in altitude and lack of oxygen to the brain would simply make them "pass out," which would afford the wife and I a few blissful moments of glorious silence...

Ahh, silence...

Anyhow, during "phase one" of the big plan, while at the new and clean and sorta high-tech Cheyenne Mountain Zoo Primate Pavilion, I spied myself a gorilla through a large round window. Could THIS gorilla be the SAME gorilla who soiled my dad all those years ago? Anyway, when I saw him, the gorilla was outside, hangin' out in his "habitat" as gorillas are wont to do. Being my father's son, my first instinct when I saw this oversize primate was to "beat on my chest." Now, I'm certainly not as large as my father, as I weigh in at (a mere) 230 pounds, but apparently my not-as-significant largesse was largesse enough that this stinkin' gorilla went NUTS at the sight of my simple chest thump and, suddenly, wished to kill me very, very dead. BANG! In a flash of nutty, crazy monkey anger, that darn thing rushed at the window that I was staring through and attacked it like...well, like a crazed monkey, kicking and beating and screeching, all the while fixing his gaze on me with a murderous gleam in his crazy monkey eyes. The sudden bedlam (also: pandelerium) REALLY freaked out the two little monsters wonderful children that the wife and I were with so we hurriedly ushered them outside, away from the scary monkey and his homicidal thoughts. Still audible, though, were the harrowing sounds of that damn gorilla doing his level best to bust his way through the aforementioned window and finish what I had so foolishly started...

About an hour later, after we saw the birds of prey (ooh) and the big cats (ahh) and the stinkin' giraffes (don't stand too close, they pee from great heights) and those nutty, nutty penguins (yay), we checked back in at the primate pavilion just to see if that damn gorilla had calmed down and found that, while trying to kill and eat me, he had put a sizable crack, running vertically from top to bottom, in the (thankfully) multi-pane plexiglass window. Since I DIDN'T see the gorilla toolin' around outside the window right then, I got closer to see exactly how much damage the window had sustained when I caught sight of a smallish plaque near the window which I had not noticed before. In relatively tiny letters, this oh-so-helpful plaque warned idiots like myself, among other things, not to beat my chest in the presence of a gorilla because the gorilla will interpret such actions as a "direct challenge" and WILL fight to defend his "turf," so to speak...Good to know...Thank God them penguins ain't as aggressive, those little bastards could've easily ganged up on me and had me for lunch...

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