travel

Monkey Turns Down Promotion

Monkey Turns Down Promotion

“I hereby appoint you head of the asylum.”

The young office monkey with the plastic stethoscope
was dressed neatly in a white sheet.

“Dr. Freud, I presume?”
Monkey held out his hand
but his witticism was lost in a flood of water
flowing from the flush and over the floor.

Monkey stood there, paddling in piddle.
Inmates with crowded heads and vacant faces,
fools grinning at a universe of folly,
paddled beside him. He wiped
a sick one’s drool from his sleeve.

The office boy spat on his hands,
slicked down his hair, and placed
his stethoscope on monkey’s heaving chest.

“You have no pulse.”
“How do you know I have no pulse?
Surely, you cannot hear my heart
for you have a banana stuck in your ear.”

“Speak up!” said the doctor,
“I cannot hear you:
I have a banana stuck in my ear.”

Then monkey felt fear.

Daylight diminished
and waters closed over his head.
He spurned the proffered paw,
the life belt thrown
by the offer of a new position.

Exit monkey left,
pursued by a chorus:
“Run, monkey, run!”

Commentary:

A Golden Oldie from Monkey Temple (2010). I came across it by accident as I thumbed through some older books – wow, fifteen years ago that came out. A Golden Oldie indeed. I had forgotten all about Monkey Temple. However, the last couple of days I have watched New Zealand vs Canada and England vs France (Women’s Rugby World Cup). Both semi-finals took place at Ashton gate, Bristol. That’s when I started thinking about Bristol and Bristol Zoo.

We had family in Bristol (Westbury-on-Trym) and from an early age we visited Bristol Zoo. One of my favorite places was the old ruined Monkey Temple, full of monkeys that impressed me with their antics. A small, walled zoo, it was full of innovations and I remember well Alfred the Gorilla and Rosie the Elephant. I loved the rides on Rosie’s back. The camels too offered lifts to young children and the elephants took apples from my hand with their long trunks. I also remember the bear pit, and loved watching the brown bear climb to the top of his pole and catch food thrown to him by the visitors.

I think everybody’s greatest thrill came with feeding time for the seals. What a racket when the attendant appeared with his / her pail of fish and he/she threw them to the waiting seals. Almost as thrilling was the penguin house with its aquarium and glass windows. Animals that seemed so clumsy, waddling on land, turn into sea-angels when they dived and we could meet them, face to face, so to speak, almost in their own environment.

My love of zoos reached out and I recall the zoo in Madrid, established when Columbus returned from his voyages with species of animals hitherto unknown. And who could forget Copo de Nieve, the albino gorilla in Barcelona zoo.

Alas, my zoo day’s are over. But the world is wonderful. Today, two deer entered our front yard, lunched on the fallen crab apples, and went to sleep underneath the trees outside our window. Joy to the world and the world brings me joy -sunrise and sunset, colored clouds, the deer in my yard, a fox passing through. However, I must admit I am not impressed by the little red squirrel that nests under the hood of my car and gnaws my cables. Nor by the porcupine who loves the salt in my garage doors and nibbles at the door frame every chance it gets. The love of nature – red in tooth and claw – I guess we have to enjoy the good and put up with the bad. Life’s like that. “Ask the animals, they will teach you.” Bristol Zoo motto.

What could you do less of?

Daily writing prompt
What could you do less of?
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What could you do less of?
I shall deliberately misinterpret that prompt / question and answer it my way. I could do less of listening to stupid adverts, repeated ad nauseam, sometimes with gimmicky tunes – one to two lines maximum – again and again, all day, every day. Surf the channels to escape an ad, and what do you get? A synchronized set up where almost every channel is blasting out the same, or similar, ads at the same time. Have you noticed that when you leave the TV room, and retreat to the kitchen to get some limited peace, the ads follow you because the volume is turned up at ad time so you just can’t escape.

I remember my grandfather, back in the sixties, with the advent of ITV in Wales – the Independent TV channel that used ads – sitting before the TV set, his foot up before the screen and his fingers in his ears so he would not be able to see or hear those ads. Alas, once heard, seldom forgotten, and I can still sing most of those meaningless jingles heard back in my childhood. How it I hate when I go shopping in the supermarket and shoppers tunelessly whistle a TV ad as they shuffle along behind their carts. Alas, ad free programming, all too often, is either expensive or non-existent.

And what about those telephone calls when they put you on hold until the next agent is free to attend to you? I won’t mention names, because I don’t want to get sued, but I guess we have all had the same experience. I had a ninety minute online wait one day, with horrible music, an exhortation to stay on the line so I wouldn’t lose my place in the queue aka line-up, and a 90 second ad that glorified the joys of the company’s product, repeated once every five minutes. I suffered through that ad 18 times on that one call alone. Another local firm gave me the similar treatment, except that it was a one minute ad, repeated once every ninety seconds. I suffered through 10 repetitions in a wait of 15 minutes, got fed up, and hung up the phone.

Look at the peaceful scene above. That’s the view from my bedroom window in Island View. Even the crows are absent, and the early morning silence, like the sun, is golden. Two birds with one stone – a morning person or an evening person? A morning person with dawns like this, but an evening person when a sunset like this one miraculously occurs.

What is one thing you would change about yourself?

Daily writing prompt
What is one thing you would change about yourself?
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What is the one thing you would change about yourself?

Only one thing? I remember a story about a boy who boarded in a monastery school, and there, like the monks, they all changed their dirty habits once a week. So, is a dirty habit a thing? Probably is, if its a brown, sackcloth habit, tightened around the waist with a white cord by a man wearing open-toed sandals and no socks. So, there we go, once a week, on Wednesdays, like those monks, I also change my dirty habits. I also change my shoes, my socks, my shirts, my sweaters, my jeans.

More important, as I grow older, I have permitted myself to change my mind as often as I like. So, yes, I also change my mind, and not just on Wednesdays. And I really do change it when, like my habits, it gets dirty. “Oooh, you’ve got a dirty mind, you have.” “Well, so I do. Never mind, I’ll just go and change it.”

“What did Big Ben say to the Leaning Tower of Pizza?” – I’ve got the time, if you’ve got the inclination.
“How many ears did Davy Crocket have?” – Three – a left ear, a right ear, and a wild front ear.
“What’s yellow and deadly?” – Shark infested custard.
“What’s black and deadly?” – A crow in a tree with an AK47.
“When is a door not a door?” – When it’s a jar.
“What time is it Eccles?” – “It’s eight o’clock.” “Here, how do you know it’s eight o’clock?” “I’ve got it written down on a piece of paper.” “What do you do if it’s not eight o’clock?” “I don’t look at the paper.”
“Ding-a-ling” – That’s my ear ringing. I’ll just pick it up and answer it.
“What’s the first sign of madness?” – Hairs in the palm of your hand. “What’s the second sign of madness?” – Looking for them.

So what is one thing I would change about myself? Possibly the absolute necessity to tell awfully bad jokes. Easy to say – I’ll probably keep adding to these as I remember more of them. Take care – you have been warned.

“How many – men – does it take to change a light bulb?” – Five. One to hold the bulb and four to turn the ladder. Jokes like these can be good or bad. Good because they are occasionally funny. Bad, because it so easy to insert an adjective before – men – and to turn the joke into something more devious and not necessarily very pleasant.

“And that is the end of the gnus,” said the lion on BBC television, as he licked his paws. “Enough, no more. It is not as sweet now, nor as sour, as it was before. Pass the chow mean, please.”