So, I'm reading the story of the ten little monkeys jumping on the bed. It goes something like this (over and over and over) "One fell down and bumped his head. Momma called the doctor and the doctor said 'No more monkeys, jumping on the bed.'" After the first page, there are nine such monkeys, then eight, then seven, and so on, none of whom learn the easy way -- by watching their foolish siblings getting hurt and thereafter avoiding the conduct that caused the injury. This is not a good lesson for little kids.
The story also ends without really telling us what we want to know. What happened to the first monkeys? How badly were they hurt? Which of the monkeys was the most seriously injured? Did they get spankings? And why didn't momma monkey watch the other baby monkeys more carefully after the first one fell? Your smarter toddlers want to know, but I don't have the teacher's edition that, I assume, has the answers to these questions.
I should stop talking about monkeys. I know this not so much because my friends and family have told me -- though they undoubtedly should have done so by now -- but, rather, because Google has made it quite clear that I talk too much about monkeys.
If you do a Google search for:
relaxed monkey
butt sniffing monkey or
monkey sniffing butt
and hit the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button, you will end up right back here at my bjournal.
This begs the question of why someone who is searching for a butt sniffing monkey would ever feel lucky, but apparently, some do. Typepad lets me see the links that draw people to this bjournal, and about ten percent come from Google and its butt sniffing monkey searches.
It's hard not to talk about monkeys, though, especially in this, the Year of the Monkey. And let's face it. Monkeys are cool. If you look at Yahoo's most popular pictures, you will usually find at least one or two photographs of monkeys. Why? Because people dig monkeys.
I hate spiders, but I love spider monkeys.
I hate rallies, but I love the Rally Monkey.
I hate flying, but I love the flying monkeys.
For years, I wondered what those flying monkeys from the Wizard of Oz were called. I was recently disappointed to learn that they're just called flying monkeys.
I once jokingly referred to certain members of the United States Air Force as flying monkeys. I thought that, because I was in the company of a bunch of Navy guys, this would go over well. It didn't. They threatened to kick my ass. So I guess not everyone likes to be associated with monkeys. But, unlike Howard Cosell, I learned my lesson the easy way.
Why do I like monkeys? Largely because they are so much like humans. After all, humans are basically just complex, smart monkeys with souls, well developed voice boxes and written language skills. Have you seen Prophecy? I loved those scenes in which Christopher Walken's character, the bitter archangel Gabriel, keeps bitching about how much God loves the "talking monkeys." Talking monkeys? Oh, he means us.
My favorite movie ever was Altered States. The main reason, of course, was because I was fascinated by Professor Eddie Jessup's attempts to transmogrify himself into a monkey. Scientific experiments just don't get any better than that.
Some come close, though. Last year, some scientists performed an experiment to determine the likelihood that an infinite number of monkeys typing randomly on an infinite number of keyboards would eventually produce the works of Shakespeare.
Though the number of subject monkeys was finite, some people believe that they disproved the old theory. As it turns out, monkeys do not type randomly. Some don't type at all, but if they do type, they tend to prefer certain keys and will press the same favorite key or keys repeatedly.
In conducting this experiment, the same scientists inadvertently proved another long-suspected theory: that some scientists have wwwwwwwwway too much time -- and grant money -- on their hands.
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