The Thing About Monkeys
Posted on August 7, 2010 Posted by Burns! 52 Comments
The thing about monkeys is, they’re everywhere.
When this is over, you may not want to hear about the monkey theory, but I just have to put it out there.
Everyday –every day- you will have a monkey sighting. You’ll see a picture of a monkey, someone will say “monkey,” you’ll hear a monkey noise, whatever. There are monkeys everyday. If you miss one, don’t worry about it; there will be others.
A friend told me about the monkey theory five years ago. I’ve seen monkeys every single day since then. Usually several monkeys throughout the day. I can’t escape them. Now, you can’t escape them either.
Oh, there will be contrarians among you. Some will say this is ridiculous; that there can’t possibly be a monkey every day. I’m telling you there are. There will even be those who come back here to the comment thread tomorrow, only to say, “See? I didn’t have a monkey sighting all day yesterday.” To them I say that denial is not just a river in Egypt. You may consciously avoid monkeys now; but tomorrow, next week, and forever more, when you’re not thinking about it, they will be everywhere.
On a somewhat related note, I mentioned previously that while I don’t have a cat, I do have friends with cats. Thus, I present Charles. And his monkey.
Please don’t curse me for opening your eyes to all of the monkeys. When you relax and accept it, monkeys are kind of fun. As the Barenaked Ladies sang in If I Had $1,000,000, “Haven’t you always wanted a monkey?”
This is true. Most folks see several WWdN:IX Monkeys each day and have no clue…
There’s always Codemonkey, by Jonathan Coulton.
Picture is a chimpanzee. Chimps are apes, not monkeys. :->
@#3 Bill: For the purposes of the (generic) monkey sightings, there are no lines drawn between monkeys and apes. Apes count.
While Bill is correct, I have the sneaking suspicion that he’s trying to make a monkey out of you, Burns.
Don’t be silly, I haven’t seen a monkey yet toda… DAMMIT!
You are an evil, evil human being.
Great. Now not only am I hyper aware of monkeys, I have ‘If I had $1,000,000’ stuck in my head. And that one takes DAYS to get out!!
I’m assuming I don’t count the wooden monkey doll that lives in the computer room….it should be a NEW monkey. Or at the very least an occasional monkey.
It’s just like “The Game!”
Also, I had a teacher who told us that he had a contest forever going of who could find a train with the most engines. His record was 9. After that, I kept having to count the engines on a train. I beat him. I got 11.
Monkey/Ape quota for the day…completed.
@#5 Martin: Heh. Like I need any help with that.
@#6-8 Rick, bearing, Govoria: Yeah. Sorry.
@#9 Elle: You won’t need to count that one. There will be plenty of others.
@#10 Megan: CRAP! I just lost the game.
@#11 Busta: Oh, there will probably be more.
@#4 Burns!: If apes count as monkeys for this meme, then all one must do to fulfill it is to look at oneself. After all, humans are apes. Just ask my two-year-old. SHE perceives a difference between monkeys and apes, but not between other apes and humans.
You told us about this years ago. It’s true!
Monkeys are my totem animal, so I don’t see a problem with this.
Inasmuch as I have a monkey doll in a cape sitting on my desk, I can’t avoid seeing a monkey every day. BTW: shake the doll and it emits a frightening monkey screech. Very satisfying.
Now I understand your earlier remark better. I thought you were joking, but you weren’t.
Going to agree with Victoria. If we’re defining monkey to include ape, then the definition includes ourselves.
Now, if we clarify ‘monkey’ as ‘non-human primate’…
(Also, I suspect my ‘monkey’ siting before today was reading Wikipedia on ancient hominids. Actually that probably covered me for a good couple of days, since I read science books to relax before bed, and right now it’s evolutionary biology.)
Just get it out of the way early by watching this video every morning . . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8N7-wRWg7FU
[Caution: Earworm ahead.]
Instigator, indeed. :) This sort of thing is really worse than an earworm.
On the other hand, Charles is gorgeous.
Oh, and may you see a giraffe every day. Tall giraffes, taller giraffes, stuffed giraffes, carved giraffes, giraffes sticking their head in your dining room window to share your breakfast, giraffes driving down the street in convertables…because, you know, they’d need the headroom.
Hey, look! A giraffe.
And, did I mention…giraffe.
Oh, also. You need to yawn.
And don’t you just need to scratch that itch right. Between. Your. Shoulderblades.
At the grocery store today, my husband said, in response to a screeching child, “There must be a howler monkey in the store.”
It begins…..
When watching Zane Lamprey’s show Three Sheets, whenever you see Pleepleus the Monkey (or any monkey), you must drink. So now we have that going for us. Which is nice.
You did it!? You ruined everyones life as you’ve ruined mine?
Oh, woe is me. I can’t escape the monkeys!
I once heard that once a week you will hear a reference to The Wizard of Oz. In over 20 years, I’ve found that to be true. Now I shall have to watch for monkeys as well.
Of course, there are flying monkeys.
Sir, you are a strange strange man.
Nice picture of Charles and his toy. I myself have a stuffed “Bo the First Dog” which I love dearly. Kneading and grooming it makes me very happy and I purr. Once I found my brother ravishing it, but I put a stop to *that* at once.
There are no monkeys. They’re only a theory. No one can prove they exist. You can show me pictures, but I know about PhotoShop (and I can tell by some of the pixels). I’ve been to the monkey house at the zoo, but they were obviously animatronic fakes. I mean, who are they kidding? There aren’t any monkeys, so what else could they be but animatronics?
You can show me one being dissected, but then I’ve seen a video of an oogah-boogah space alien (cue theremin) being dissected, and that was faked too. No such thing as monkeys.
Therefore I can’t see one, today, or any day. So there.
This is not, however, to discount the existence of Monkees, which are quite another thing.
Someone HAD to mention BnL and chimps.
Allow me to enlighten all!
Oh, /sure/. Go ahead and exploit my natural instinct to look for patterns and significance, why don’t you. ‘s worse than the time that somebody told me that the number 23 was stalking me…
@#2 Josh: There’s also My Monkey, Monkey Shine, De-Evolving, half-monkey-half-pony monsters… Jonathan Coulton must have been out to prove the monkey theory.
I wonder if this predates the internet? Cause I can tell you, if I didn’t use the internet, my monkey intake would be WAY under the RDAA (recommended daily ape allowance).
Also, one of the things that made me decide to stay in Japan was seeing monkeys scrambling across the road about 20 miles from my house. I FINALLY live in a place with wild monkeys–my chances of becoming lord of the jungle just got that much higher…
If I Had $1,000,000, I most certainly would NOT want a monkey. While they can be amusing and cute, I have had too much close contact with a monkey. A childhood friend and his family had a seemingly nice and amusing and adorable little monkey as a pet. I’m here to testify that the little bugger was a dirty, nasty, MEAN tiny little creature. Pure evil.
On the other hand, picture-of-monkey sightings are fine, because they don’t bite or pull your hair or throw stuff at you. And they can be cute (though rarely as cute as cats). :-)
Fnord
If you’re looking for an appropriate Barenaked Ladies song about monkeys, I think you’d actually want “Another Postcard,” which is about someone who keeps sending the band daily postcards covered with chimpazees. It’s pretty catchy, too, and the video is awesome, in an aweful sort of way.
Yes, technically not monkeys, but, as per post #4, apes count.
Not to toot my own horn Matt, but check #28
/okay so maybe I am
I can’t believe you missed the most obvious monkey song – also by BNL “Another Postcard” in which the singer is inundated by postcards of chimpanzees (since we are counting them). Something that I thought was cute and have since done to a friend while on an extended trip to Europe. Every day I sent him a postcard with a chimp on it. Oddly, I didn’t find it hard to locate such cards in the major capitals (and some minor cities) of that continent.
I expected someone to mention The Librarian, an ape who is highly offended when he is called a monkey. See Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels for details. There must be some overlap between this group and Pratchett’s readers.
Between 12:15 and 1:30 a.m. today, I watched a sitcom that mentioned a monkey and saw a little blurb on TV that featured Curious George.
My husband received a Tweet that included a link to a photo of a baby gibbon, and I saw the picture.
I am awash in simianity.
By a strange coincidence, my 2 year old has recently gotten hooked on Curious George, who is supposed to be a “good little monkey,” but he completely lacks any tail, making me think he’s actually a chimp.
Popular taxonomy lumps all non-human primates into “monkey.” Of course, anyone who has ever taken too much mescaline can tell you that people really are just monkeys with more neuroses.
I work at Seattle Children’s Hospital. I see monkeys, giraffes, zebras, lions and tigers and bears every day. I also see rockets, trains and airplanes. Oh, and hippos, I love the hippo by the fountain at the entrance.
SO MANY MONKEYS! (all on the internets, thank goodness)
For the purposes of the (generic) monkey sightings, there are no lines drawn between monkeys and apes
OOOK.
Wow, photo of chimpanzee before breakfast, and already an ad for Sing-a-long Wizard of Oz right after lunch on the first day of the week I started watching out for those two.
That is pretty amazing, and you bet I’ll keep looking!
This is crazy. I was just reading this blog and had an e-mail template to sign off on at work that, you guessed it, has a monkey (o.k. a chimp) on it with the clever catch-phrase “Stop monkeying around…”
Jeez. Five monkeys today. WTF?
Is there a “I Can Has Monkeez?” site anywhere? :-)
Damn, others beat me to the 23/fnord connection.
YAWN!!
I feel better now… I have been seeing several young monkeys on a daily basis! I am not alone and that feels great!
I LOVE MONKEYS
Monkeys are gay
yes