Spanking the Monkey

Well, that got your attention, didn’t it?

When one is in a forest surrounded by monkeys it is best to keep calm.  And perhaps carry a towel.  In this way the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is spot on.  Monkeys look very cute and innocent.  They are not.  Do not be fooled.  Tiffany, I can feel you wavering, “but they have those cute little faces”.  That is when, BAM, there is a monkey on you as you scream in TERROR!  (I am really feeling the capital letters today, so dramatic.)  Like this silly tourist I saw today.  Who bought bananas for the monkeys.  Trust me, this did not end well for her. 

I’m sure you all know this as it is an incredibly well known fact, but monkeys have opposable thumbs.  That’s right, they have tiny little human hands.  They have them so that they can climb trees and pound coconuts.  Also, so they can cling to shrieking, hysterical tourists until said tourists throw far from them any object that the monkey may possibly want to possess and run away weeping.  I watched this happen today.  I may have been giggling to myself as I watched.  I don’t know if you are aware of this, but I am not a nice person.

That is why karma frequently likes to teach me lessons.  I did not bring the monkeys food.   I did not want to get jumped by a simian.  A desire I have stated in previous posts.  I kept all bags zipped and my camera lashed around my wrist.  I read the brochure.  I knew the rules.  Then a monkey decided that people were more fun to climb on than trees and suddenly there I was, the newest perch in the Monkey Forest.  I didn’t make a sound, I just stood there for a second while it decided what to do.  Then I heard it behind me – the giggling.  Not from a monkey, they don’t giggle.  They probably do know sign language for “who wants to climb the blonde girl next”, but the giggles I heard were from the staff sitting at a nearby table.  Everyone has their moment to look stupid and I assure you, with a gray macaque on my head, my time was this morning.  Satisfied for the moment that I had nothing worth grabbing, the monkey took its leave from my person.  It did continue to stalk me through the outer grounds of the temple at the forest’s center.  Vindictive little bastard.

But enough of the monkey talk. 

Today was supposed to be rapture day.  Wait, let’s try that again, RAPTURE DAY!  A day for one last rose ceremony from God to be followed by volatile reactions from the earth itself, just like on reality tv.  Spoiler Alert:  No such reactions happened here in Bali so I think you guys are probably safe.  As for the disappearances, well…the chances that I know even one of the 300,000 or 144,000, or 12 people who made the cut (and the number schemes do seem to vary wildly) are very slim.  My chosen people have far too much respect for living to have been nominated to that homecoming court full of goody-goodies. So let’s just take a moment to celebrate each other for all of our glorious little faults.  Friends who drink, swear, fornicate, masturbate, pontificate, judge, eat meat on Sunday, and all of the other stuff that we know we aren’t really supposed to do, I love each and every one of you just as you are.  Besides if we are all going to hell, won’t hell just look like LA?