Monkeyblogging: You Take the Good, You Take the Bad…

As I continue to write here I’ve been meaning to delve into the navel gaze-y, niche style of blogging where I obsess over the inanities of life, like hairblogging, or catblogging, but sadly I don’t own an pet and I shave my head. Not to mention, my fucking aloe plant hasn’t done anything that’s shit-interesting in like, months. So, I will henceforth be periodically blogging about my imaginary pet monkey, Bowie.

I came home from a long day at work to find that Bowie, my Capuchin monkey, had slung shit all over the walls. Like, all over. All I could manage was a “Dammit, Bowie” before he scurried to his perch on the armoire, giving me a shrug as if to say, “what did you expect, I’m a monkey.”

I loosened the knot on my tie, let out a sigh, and ushered Bowie, who was suddenly quite contrite, into the bathroom for a time-out while I set about de-feces-ing the walls of my humble abode. After going over every surface with Clorox Wipes (twice!) I opened the door to find Bowie thumbing through the pages of the most recent issue of Vanity Fair. (He can’t read, obvi, he’s a monkey, but he certainly has a sense of the sartorial!). Bowie, named for one of the most skilled mimes of the twentieth century–and a heckuva singer to boot–Mr. David Bowie, had been moody lately. I’d been working long hours, unable to provide the constant companionship and devil-may-care tomfoolery we’d experienced in our halcyon days together: Lobbing water balloons on unsuspecting people from the window, dancing to ABBA-Gold, or just poring over the Sunday Times (I like Arts & Leisure, he goes straight for the magazine!).

I lured him to me with a “Hey buddy, c’mere” and he scampered up on the sink. After cleaning him up, we dressed in our matching smoking jackets and retired to the living room. We stared at each other for a moment, and I gave Bowie a nod as if to say, “We’re cool now, buddy.”

Bowie ambled into the kitchen to fix a drink. He’d almost mastered a mojito and been close to perfecting the martini, but due to his short temper and willfulness, his experiments in mixology usually ended up on, you guessed it, the kitchen wall. Now, he generally stuck to making drinks with a single liquor and mixer, and by mixer I mean ice. Bowie served me my Scotch on the rocks, and then returned to the kitchen to make a nightcap for himself. I recalled the time he’d been chain-smoking and nearly set the apartment on fire after falling asleep with a lit cigarette. “Oh, Bowie” I chuckled to myself.

Clutched in his monkey paws, Bowie held aloft his shot glass of whiskey to me and I clinked my rocks glass in toast. We drank in comfortable silence. Bowie went to the kitchen to fetch another round. I felt bad for neglecting him these past few months. Bowie was more than just a pet, he was a companion, and when I gazed into his eyes, I could swear I saw his tiny monkey soul. I saw the whole Lion King-circle of life-interdependency of the species-mother earth-thing right here in my living room.

Then, with my new understanding, we proceeded to get shit-faced and pass out on the couch.