Have you seen my monkey?

OK, I've been bugged enough times to tell the story of my recent escalation of monkey obsession. I thought I should just get it out there so you know why I'm monkey crazy.

It all started so innocently...

The kids and I used to hang out with another family when they were in early grade school. We would travel together on day trips with two moms and five kids in a car. A recipe for disaster, at times, you can imagine.

On a last minute trip to the beach, the hot and crabby kids in the back were having words with each other when a slap-fight broke out. As I was driving the behemoth of an SUV, I laid down the law - be quiet back there or off with your heads. I was, of course, completely ignored. I had to pull off the road twice before things settled down. "The look" was involved. You'd be scared too, trust me.

At Seaside, we did the usual touristy things - rode the carousel, played on the sand and shopped at the mall. We had elephant ears. Just before we left town, I stopped in at the toy store to look for something as incentive for the kids to behave on the way home. This is where Rabies joined the fam.

I bought this little monkey with Velcro on his arms and hung him from my belt loop. He traveled toward home for a bit before I had to hurl him over my shoulder and smack a child in the head for mouthing off. He flew back there a number of times before we got home. I had intended to give it to the child who was well behaved all the way home but there wasn't such a thing. I asked the kids to name him and they came up with all sorts of stupid ideas. Really, really stupid.

So, I dubbed him Rabies. Rabies is currently traveling the United States - at his second stop, in Miami. Check out his blog, Rabies Travels the World, to see his grand adventures. He went on an adventure through Oregon and Washington, if you'd like to see what fun he had. We had a little fun, too.

Are we there yet?
Guest Blogger: Sara
Guest Blogger: Sean
The trip thing of Sara
Hi from the road
I don't know


It was a number of years before I added additional monkeys to the collection. Rabies saw me through some tough times at work (where he protected me from weird bosses and angry customers by giving them the evil eye and placing monkey curses on their offspring).

Then, Asthma came along. We were at the zoo, Keith bought me a new monkey (this one of a different variety) and he named him Asthma. Diseased monkeys were added faster than I can count. Let's see if I remember them all...

Rabies








Asthma








Syphillus (aka Syffie, the orange one pictured here with Whizz)

Hivvie (who lives with Fireblossom)
Gangrene (who lives on my desk at work)








Sanser (which you'll understand if you watch SouthPark)


Cleft (as in palate) and
Joe (Named after Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man)pictured together here.

Lately, we've added:
Max & Princess
Whizz (see above)
Ho Ho (who also lives in the IT department at work)
Sari

Ginger

My favorite monkey is Smock.

He's a puppet and he holds special love notes as he sits on my bedside table.

So, as you can see, it's time to say "enough monkeys already!!" We have monkey bowling, monkey key fobs, flying monkeys (and I'm really not afraid to use them) and monkey stationery. This monkey thing is starting to get out of hand.

Today, someone very smart reminded me that gorillas and other primates aren't monkeys. Ooh. Maybe there IS still room for another monkey or two.