Tales of a Traveling Monkey

I don’t know where the monkey is, and that makes me a little concerned. Allow me to explain.

Way back around 1985, my uncle took my brother and me on a vacation to an awesome water park in Wisconsin. While we were on the trip, we found that my uncle had a small rubber monkey in his car. I don’t recall why he had such a thing, but I’m sure there was probably a good explanation.

Anyway, the monkey became a bit of a mascot for the trip as we tossed it around the car, torturing it as we passed through several states. At one point we transformed it into a pencil holder, resulting in some serious physical damage to the monkey’s private region.

When we got back home, I discovered that my uncle had hidden the monkey in my luggage, and a new, disturbing tradition was born. Any time one of the three of us was visiting one another, we’d sneak the monkey into someone else’s possession. Over the years it has appeared in suitcases, coolers, car glove compartments, wrapped as a Christmas gift, etc. Any visit was fair game, whether it was a birthday or funeral (in our family, we put the “f-u-n” in “funeral”).

The most notable method of passing the monkey took place after my uncle’s wedding. My brother and I were at his house after the newlyweds had left for their honeymoon, so we took a giant knife from his counter and stabbed the monkey onto his wooden kitchen cabinet. This seemed like a great, creative idea at the time, but apparently our new aunt wasn’t exactly impressed or amused upon returning from their trip.

I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when they returned so I could have heard the blood chilling scream she let out when she made the discovery. I guess it took my uncle a lot of explaining that this wasn’t meant to be a sick, twisted terror plot or some horrible omen; it was merely a family tradition! Welcome to the family!

It has been several years since I have seen the monkey, which means it could reappear at any time. Every so often, I’ll whisper to my brother, “Have you seen the monkey?” I don’t know if he has it or not. Frankly I just hope nobody ever hears me whispering that to him since it sounds like a secret espionage code phrase, like “the crow flies at dawn,” or “the bald man sings at midnight.”

Anyway, I’m sure that someday, the monkey shall return in all its glory.