Category: Motorcycles, Monkeys, Mischief, and My Life

Many of us have heard the term “Mickey Mouse” used as a verb to describe often inexpensive, sometimes innovative ways to solve problems. Well, I Minnie Mouse. Not being particularly talented in dealing with “thing” situations (i.e. if it does not involved a pen, pencil, or words, I probably can’t do it), I have to resort to unusual measures to “”make do” when there is no one around to give things the proper attention. Cases in point: using a rubber band to fasten jeans that really need the waistband let out; using duct tape to replace a broken zipper on racing leathers; substituting tapioca for rice to take the “Rocky Horror Picture Show” (chapter in another story…); trying to glue things with gum or nail polish; burying a dog in an abandoned outhouse hole due to lack of shovel (don’t ask!); …you get the picture.

Soooo…envision winter time years ago, piles of snow, treacherous ice, a woman fearful of falling while trying to get to her vehicle which is parked on a slanted driveway  on the opposite side of the house from the door and requires a walk in the seldom-plowed road to access.  No available salt or ice melt.  Minnie Mouse to the rescue!

Hmmmm…traction needed.  Sand provides traction.  No sand available.  What might be a suitable sand substitute?  Hmmmm…kitty litter!!! Yes!!! Brilliant – and available!!!  So I forged a trail of the gritty stuff to and surrounding the car.  Problem solved.  I could trot happily to and from the vehicle without fear.  Until the next morning.  When I discovered just how many cats lived in the neighborhood.  Lots of cats.  Cats that would usually use the entirety of the great outdoors to relieve themselves.  Apparently they assumed that I had created their own personal outhouse, and they took full advantage.  Apparently they notified all their friends of the wondrous facility.  My innovative Minnie Mouse solution litter-ally went awry.

(Sigh…)  Such is the life of a monkey mom (yet another story).

My husband and I were “Rocky Horror Picture Show” virgins all those years ago…prompted at the last minute to go a midnight showing at a nearby movie house with the younger cast members of a play we were in together. We had little turnaround time between the ending of our on-stage performance and the start of the movie, so we were frantically getting instructions on things to bring (with no time for explanations as to why to bring these items): newspapers, rice to throw, toast, etc. So we rushed home and did our best to gather the necessities. No rice in the cupboard, but I found a small box of tapioca and figured it would have to make do. Hmmm….it seemed like throwing a heavy box could be painful to someone, so I emptied it into a ziplock bag, figuring a baggie would be softer. Of course, the cinema folks would not want the actual individual rice grains thrown as that would be a horrible mess to clean up. (Like I said, we had never done this before.)  So….off we went to the movie!  In line we found that the employees of the theatre had to search our belongings, so we proudly presented the items we had toted from home.  When they came upon the bag of uncooked tapioca, they examined it cautiously with puzzled expressions.  I explained it was tapioca because we didn’t have rice, and the inspector just gave me an odd glance and proceeded to consult with a second inspector who also gave me an odd glance, then confiscated my tapioca and took it to the manager’s office before allowing us to enter the building.  (Sigh….)  Embarrassing, to say the least.  The movie was fun, and we discovered that the staff do indeed sweep up the individual grains of rice!  Somehow, I managed to live that down.

Until….20-some years later, when sitting in a coffee shop with a friend, we were near a group of folks doing needlework together and overheard them talking about “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”.  Gregarious person that I am, I bit the bullet and tapped the one fellow on the shoulder to say I had seen the show once upon a time many years before.  He asked what theatre, and I told him, to which he replied that he had been the manager there a number of years ago.  I pointed out that our visit would have to have been before his time (as he seemed quite a bit younger to me) but that I had a funny story to tell him.  And I told him the tale of the confiscated tapioca.  When he was able to stop laughing, he stated that he indeed had been the manager that day and recalled the incident well.  He said he had always wondered who in the world could be that dumb….at which point I offered a handshake and introduced myself.

Ah, the good old days!  This recollection was prompted by a recent viewing of “The Rocky Horror Show”, an excellent and raucous stage “extra” production by the Ohio Shakespeare Festival.  We even stood and did the Time Warp; however, apparently I am dyslexic, disorganized, and laterally challenged in regard to both right and left as well as up and down.  (Hard to know whether to mirror the performers, or use the same hands they do while facing them.)  Oh, well……more embarrassing moments. But what a fun life!

It all started with the school bus. Well, that’s not entirely true. I guess it all started with the cat. A gray and white, straggly, bedraggled Persian-ish cat appeared on our back porch one winter day, looking hungry and forlorn. When we tried petting him, we discovered that his backbone was configured rather like the Alps as, despite the fluff, there was very little substance to him. We realized that, had he had a home, he would most likely have been in it. So, of course, we fed him and brought him into the house. He was a handsome fellow with a long, leonine face and pale grey ghostly eyes. However, the resident dogs immediately began to assess the situation (Schultzie, the boxer: “Wait a minute! Two dogs, two cats! Wrong ratio,” Chickie, the hound: “Yeah. We were already put-upon to let Gimpy live here. This is not okay!”) So we immediately hustled PomPom (my human son, then 8, named him) off to the master bedroom, the only room in the house that had a door that would actually stay latched. But the dogs knew he was there. They knew.
Well, the following day, the school bus dropped off a neighborhood full of kids, mostly boys, and a gleeful snowball fight began…which evolved into an ice-ball fight. The 9-year old strong man, the best little league pitcher around, had an ill-advised moment with he grabbed an icicle and heaved it toward my son. Who caught it. With his temple. I was at work, blissfully unaware of the chaos until I got the phone call from my panicked friend who was there to watch my son after school since dad was out of town. So I frantically rushed home and we frantically rushed to the hospital where he (after massive protests) received 10 stitches on the outside and, reportedly. 10 more on the inside as the deep wound miraculously did not quit reach his eye. Home we went, under instruction to have a quiet, restful evening so as not to disturb the wound.
But this was our house we were returning to. “Restful” was an unlikelihood. Having situated my son on the sofa, I had to retrieve something from my bedroom and went upstairs, followed by Chickie and Schultz…who knew were PomPom was stashed and trotted up with me, spoiling for a fight. (Chickie was often the instigator; Schultz, the muscle.) When I emerged from the bedroom and tried to close the door, it wouldn’t shut, so I turned to see PomPom’s head sticking out with the door closing on his neck. Well, not wanting to choke the cat we had just rescued, I let the door open slightly and went to nudge PomPom back in with my foot. But PomPom, quick for an ailing fellow, vaulted over the foot and landed nose to nose with Schultz.
A moment of tension-filled silence ensued, all of us frozen. Then Schultz, with his floppy boxer muzzle, began to sniff the cat, apparently figuring he’d give him a chance. Sniff-snuffle-sniff — VAP!! Lightning cat claw slap across the nose!! Stunned, Schultz looked up at me as if to ask, “Can he do that!” Then, trying again…sniff-snuffle-sniff — VAP!!! Cat smack!!! Schultz took a half a jump back, and then it was one-two-three GO! and the horrible tussle ensued. Boxer jaw clamped around cat middle; four clawed cat feet embedded in boxer face. Bounce bounce bounce around the floor. Me, yelling! My son bounding up the steps. My friend coming to try to help. In desperation, she grabbed a toy plastic rifle and bopped Schultz on the nose. Surprised, he let go just long enough for the cat to make a dive under a rocker-recliner that was close by. With PomPom’s rear end sticking out, Chickie took advantage of the opportunity to nip at the exposed posterior…which got the cat all the way under the rocker. Sigh….. Time to check for damages. Schultz had some scratches on his face. We pulled PomPom out from under the chair, and he hung so limp that we were convinced he must be severely injured and dying. As it turned out, he was just exhausted from the melee.
For quite some time, there was a very cautious truce. Schultzie and PomPom would plaster themselves to the opposite wall from one another when having to pass on the house. PomPom took up residence on top of the clothes dryer which was located in the kitchen. Schultz, who could have easily gotten to the cat, preferred to pretend the cat did not exist. Ultimately they actually became friends.

And none of the pets in the household EVER challenged Mo, my second monkey child.

Right brain/left brain — each, reportedly, has certain delegated functions, the right brain being the creative side and the left, more analytical. But the bottom line is that I have an unusual relationship with my left hand.

Once upon a time, a very long time ago, I started calling other people Fred — especially if they were in surrounding vehicles, swerving and the like. “Yo, Fred! Your lane is over there!” “Watch it, Fred! You’re gonna be buying a Subaru!” Somehow, when my first grandson was born, he became Fred (not his real name). He actually answered to “Fred” for the first five or six years of his life. “Fred, get down outta that tree!” “Yo, Fred! Time for supper!”

[A bit of a leap here…but my mind does not operate in linear fashion; it spirals and loops, so I am fast-forwarding to a seemingly-not-related-but-absolutely-related part of the story.] For awhile we had my human son and his wife living with us while they were building a house. There were three dogs in the home at the time — Coco and Rocky (female and male boxers) and Bruce (half St. Bernard/half golden lab). Bruce looked a lot like Dreyfus, the dog on an old Richard Mulligan sitcom “Empty Nest” with occasional cameos on “The Golden Girls”. There are Bruce stories to come in the future. However, looping back to the Phredd story, Coco was a bit brazen and managed to mingle with both Rocky and Bruce, hence producing a litter of five puppies — two boxers and three box-nards. We didn’t want to get too attached by giving them names, so I decided we’d call them all Fred as a group. If we summoned “Fred”, they’d all come running. It worked. But….eventually they became Big Big Fred, Little Big Fred, Big Little Fred, Little Little Fred, and Winnifred –individuals, after all.

So…fast-forward once again. My friends who coached the high school Academic Challenge team would take their students to a sports bar that featured NTN Trivia (now Buzztime) to practice a weekly Showdown game as it allowed them to answer questions on a variety of topics as well as to become proficient with speedy responses. Since I would hang out with this rowdy group, I became addicted to trivia. My screen name was based on my own name (not Fred). But…ultimately, when that sports bar closed their doors, we all scattered to other venues for trivia. The closest host for me was in another town as that’s where I was working. Being addicted, it didn’t matter whether anyone went with me or not, and at times I would be the lone trivia player at that location. Part of the joy is competing, not just with the online competitors, but with other patrons of the establishment…..so on quieter nights with nobody else playing, I began to use a second playbox — screen name Phredd. Phredd is my left hand. Phredd actually has his own log-in, avatar, and Players Plus status. Go Phredd!! The weird thing (okay, one of the weird things) is that Phredd seems to know more than I do. I am convinced that he travels via astral projection while I am sleeping and accumulates experiences and knowledge to which I was never exposed. It’s rather amazing, actually. A couple of the guys where we play now have objected to Phredd’s playing and feeling it is somehow unfair. In actuality, it puts me at a disadvantage because neither Phredd nor I always get the same answers right as we often answer differently (although I really should learn to trust Phredd as he seems to get out more). There is a Category round in which competitors vote between two topics, but Phredd often chooses the other topic, so we don’t really even band together to outvote anyone. Phredd is indeed his own person. And besides, I can’t really leave Phredd at home. And it would be impolite of me to play in front of him since he is now addicted, too. It is kind of freaky, though, to be bested at trivia by my own left hand.

Cause and effect!! Six degrees of separation!! Synchronicity!!
“If a bullfrog had a hip pocket, he could carry an automatic.”
“If my aunt had wheels, she’d be a tea cart.”
(Don’t you just love how connected things are?!)
As a child, I was terrified of motorcycles. My main exposure to them at the time consisted of photos of Marlon Brando in the movie “The Wild One” and (the scary part) the earth-shaking rumble of the group of Harleys that throttled their way through the streets of the small town where my aunt and uncle lived, late at night when I would be trying to go to sleep while visiting there. I wasn’t quite sure what “motorcycles” looked like, but I knew they must be some kind of monsters judging by the roaring noise and the jarring of the house.
In a strange sequence of events, that all changed in my life. We’ll start with the sheep.
Many members of my family were (and are) farmers. I, however, was a city kid raised in an apartment building. When I would visit relatives in the summer, the county fair was one of the big events each August. I was the youngest cousin so would always be the tagalong; hence, to be able to get to the fair where they had displays, yummy fair food, and rides, I would go with my older cousins. They, of course, had responsibilities at the fair — for example, showing sheep. My cousin Dave’s sheep were Corriedales, large scruffy, woolly creatures that were not the most aesthetically pleasing of the crowd. They are sheep bred for wool. Interestingly, Merinos, sort of the “greasers” of the wool sheep world, are even larger and oilier than Corriedales…but are reputed to have superior wool. Being a city kid, enamored with cute baby animals, sweet faces, and all things pretty, I gravitated toward several other breeds when hanging out in the sheep barn. Suffolks had black faces and feet and beautiful thick beige wool. It seemed to me that their owners would shear them and primp them for their beauty in the ring. (Not so, really, as I later came to find out they apparently make a good lamp chop.) Dave’s fiance showed sheep, but hers were adorable Shropshires. In more recent times, Shrops have been crossbred to be bigger, but in those good old days they were adorable little curly-headed beings with black faces and black feet, and I came to love petting them and spending time in the sheep barn. And, in the process of watching days of sheep shows, I came to learn more than the average city kid about various breeds of sheep…and enjoyed boasting that knowledge.
How do we get to my husband and motorcycle racing? Read on….
In college, my friends and I would spend time hanging out in the student union where we could get snacks between classes and catch up on events. One day I was chatting with a friend about sheep (who knows why, except that it had become a sort of area of expertise in my life) and I could not remember the breed of sheep that were shortish, white, and whose rams had the big curly horns. First of all, I was trying to show off said “expertise” and, secondly, I absolutely hate it when I can’t remember something I know that I should know (and it will even keep me up at night). So…I was fairly frustrated, and this was in days long ago when one could not pull out (and had, in fact, never heard of) a cell phone and google for information. Long distance charges were expensive, so calling my cousin was cost-prohibitive. So, I went home without being able to name the breed, but the next day when meeting my friend in the student union, a guy sitting next to us (we’ll call him Jerry), tapped me on the arm and asked me if I had been trying to remember Dorsets. Which I was! Apparently, he had been eavesdropping on our conversation the day before and took it upon himself to obtain the information. Of course, I was thrilled. We made friends and even went out a few times, and I later learned he had a friend who was in some of my classes that had wanted to get to know me. To shorten this saga slightly, I made friends with Jerry’s friend and eventually met another friend of that friend…whom I subsequently married. These guys enjoyed going to the motorcycle races, and I would go along. (Even took Kong once, but only once as he was not fond of the noise level.) Ultimately, the fellow I married decided to try racing motorcycles and eventually started our son racing as well. So…motorcycles, from race bikes to the chopper that was being constructed in my living room (hey, it’s a culture of its own, okay?), became a part of my life.
Well, the marriage ended a number of years later, but the racing went on since my son (the human one, of course, as the monkey ones were, at a pound of a half of body weight, never quite physically able to pursue that career) continued racing. My second husband, who I met through theatre, had an interest in auto racing but not bikes. He married into the racing culture and ultimately became a proficient pit crew member (could change a tire in record time and tear down a transmission at the track, among other things).   My son, when old enough, turned pro and raced the Grand National Dirt Track circuit for a number of years, then “retired” to build motors and mentor young racers.
So…if my cousin’s wife didn’t show Shropshire sheep, my husband never would have become involved in motorcycle racing…..
Of course!

During Mo’s ten or so years in our family, the escape-artist monkey child shared our home with a number of pets (dogs, cats, and — yes — hamsters).

Hamsters are, themselves, often proficient at escape, as we learned the hard way. The very first hamster for whom I ever assumed responsibility presented a challenge of impressive proportions. He actually belonged to kids I babysat, and I foolishly agreed to host him in my apartment when their family went on vacation. Of course, the very first night, the hamster got out….in my apartment building…creating immense fear of eviction should he turn up in another apartment (not to mention the fear of the kids’ heartbreak if he got lost on my watch). Well, I developed a very creative (and elaborate) plan to trap the little guy. Since I did not know which room he was in, I placed a small supply of hamster food in each room of the apartment, including closets. So that I could trail him to his hiding place, I sprinkled flour around each food offering. Then, to isolate him in whichever room he was hunkered down, I closed off all the doors by stuffing throw rugs under them. “Aha!” I thought. “No escape for you, little buddy.”

“Ha!” I am sure the hamster was thinking as he set out to foil my plans. The next morning I found that a) all the food was missing from every room, b) flour is not an effective hamster tracking material and makes a mess when it is dragged ALL over the floor, and c) hamsters are proficient at getting under doors by means of flattening out, devouring throw rugs, etc. Hence, no hamster! (Sigh…..) The kids were coming home that day, so I had to ‘fess up that the hamster was still at large. Their mom let them stay over, and the kids devised a very simple trap…a paper grocery bag beside the bed with a handful of hamster food inside. So, while sitting on the bed playing crazy 8s, we heard a rustle, and SUCCESS!! Got him! Whew! (Thank goodness for the simple resourcefulness of children.)

Years later when my son (the human one) was about 8 or 9, we had a series of hamsters. Unfortunately, they tended to escape their habitrail with regularity. And, also unfortunately, our little hound dog, Chickie Poo, had an affection for other animals in the house and wanted to carry them around whenever possible. (He actually did this with turtles as well as hamsters.) My poor son would hop out of bed in the morning and yell (sobbing), “Mom! He did it again!” because he had stepped on a soggy hamster on the throw rug beside his bed where Chickie would deposit it after inadvertently slobbering it to death.

A few of the hamsters were quite characters. One of them, all black, was named Spot, not because he had a spot but because he was a spot. And, amazingly, he learned to respond when his name was called. “Here, Spot!” and his little head would pop up from under the wood shavings in his habitrail. Well, of course, Spot (being a hamster), got out one day. He somehow avoided Chickie and did not meet the fate of accidental drowning. My son kept saying he thought Spot had fallen down the furnace register because he heard scratching. So…down on his belly with a flashlight, he removed the grate, aimed the light down the duct, and called, “Here, Spot!” Scritch scritch scritch — here came Spot clawing up the duct in the basement to get to the juncture that went straight up to us on the second floor!! Wow! Found him! But….how to get him out? Even Spot could not shinny up a slick metal tube. Our hamster rescue innovation involved taking an individual-portion cereal box, putting food inside, tying two jump ropes together, tying one end around the box, and lowering it down the duct. Spot would climb in, and we would oh-so-carefully pull the box up the duct. Each time the box got to about the first floor level, Spot would shift his weight and tumble out and back to the bottom. After a number of unsuccessful attempts, we went to the basement and dismantled that arm of the furnace to get him out. Thank goodness it was not the time of year that the furnace came on!

Pyramus and Thisbe, a pair of hamsters, were perhaps the most odd of the bunch. Indeed they seemed to be star-crossed lovers much like their namesakes. They had a beautiful habitrail network, but Thisbe, the female, apparently suffered from agoraphobia and would not leave the room that held the water bottle even for food. Pyramus, the male, catered to her every need and would tote the food to her. Apparently Pyramus himself had obsessive-compulsive disorder and methodically built an unusual wall-covering in Thisbe’s room. It was a lovely mosaic…..a row of corn, a row of seeds, a row of hamster poop; a row of corn, a row of seeds, a row of hamster poop…. What can I say? Three of my four children were monkeys. Why would my pets be normal?

Mo never got to know his older monkey brother, Kong, but he grew up with his human brother and a menagerie of strays and rescues that were adopted, more or less unofficially, by the family. Having gone through his Houdini phase and retaining his reputation as a master escape artist, Mo did not get to exercise the freedoms that Kong had enjoyed. Unfortunately, for his own safety, Mo’s time in his cage involved lids, doors, trays, and food/water containers that were bread-wired shut. Since he had learned to unsnap his leash from his belt, unbuckle his belt, shimmy it off over his hips and tail, and (when really bored) chew through his belt, it was difficult for him to accompany the family in public without strict supervision. (Kong had been quite the socializer in his day.) One year, when a blizzard felled an ice-heavy tree across the end of our front road, we had to evacuate. (No electricity; hence, no heat — and three humans, one monkey, two cats, and two dogs could only generate so much body heat under the covers together). We had to coax Mo under a blanket, then (because he was, of course, leashless) hold onto his tail to get him to the getaway vehicle (an old pickup that was parked on the street behind us and, luckily, had a bed full of heavy snow to give us traction). On the way to the truck we had to keep pulling little furry hands off the icy shrubs Mo was trying to grab. He managed to get to his destination safely and spent a couple of days under an overturned laundry basket that was weighted down on top, again to ensure his safety. 

Despite being a rather cantankerous individual, Mo generally got along well with his animal housemates.  Well, maybe not the cats.  PomPom, a large scruffy rescue guy, pretty much ignored him; however, Gimpy (another rescue) enjoyed sports such as chasing blue jays in tree limbs outside the second story windows and thought he was dauntless…except when it came to Mo.  Gimpy’s way of “managing” Mo was to vigorously beat up the throw rug, then hide behind the armchair and peek around to see if the monkey was still watching him.  Mo, of course, would just hang on the side of his cage and shriek, totally intimidating tough guy Gimpy.  (We had found Gimpy limping through our yard one day with a mangled foot and, unable to locate an owner, took him to the vet who offered to treat him for no charge if we would agree to give him a good home.  Hence, his name….obviously before the days of political correctness.  As evidenced by his blue jay-chasing activities, he recovered just fine.)    

Mo’s relationship with the dogs tended to be a playful one.  He would pounce on them when given a chance, just for the joy of startling them.   He had the advantage of being able to climb curtains to evade them if they tried to retaliate.  Mo also delighted in getting into the kitchen cupboards and throwing snack packages onto the floor for the dogs (Chickie and Schultzie).   Visiting our house could be an adventure at times. 

Unlike Kong, Mo was not an apple guy.  His favorite foods were bananas and monkey chow.  Monkeys actually also love insects, and he loved the outdoors (when we could leash him) for the sport of catching bugs and snacking on them.  Somehow squirrel monkeys seem to know how to avoid poisonous treats…or else they were just plain lucky.   When Kong came to live with us, he was sent with a tub of mealworms that we were told to store in the refrigerator.  Being very young and averse to insects of any kind, I refused to put them in the fridge and instead put them in a drawer.  Big mistake!  Apparently, being cold keeps them alive but lulls them to sleep.  Hence, they stay in the container dormant….as opposed to, say, eating their way out of the container because they are warm, active, and bored.  Lesson learned quickly! 

More Mo and the Menagerie stories to come….and the little sister, Edith Anne. 

Mo came home with a roommate. The plan was for Mo to share a tallish cage with an Abyssinian long-haired guinea pig, a cute little guy with tufts and cowlicks. Mo would live in the upper section, the guinea pig would be in the bottom area, and the two would become good buddies. That was the plan. Reality soon proved otherwise. The guinea pig expressed his aversion to sharing by biting Mo’s tail (and we learned from Kong that monkey tails are rather sensitive). Mo would, in turn, rip out fistfuls of the guinea pigs long hair. and so began the saga of Mo’s need to establish Alpha-maleness in his relationships with other household inhabitants.

As the roomie arrangement was not working, the guinea pig soon moved out, leaving the entire cage to Mo. Since Kong had been so friendly and amiable, we decided to leash Mo to the top of his cage, leave the lid off, and allow him to go in and out (similarly to Kong’s accommodations on his little red stool). Mo enjoyed this freedom tremendously. However, we had two dogs at the time, Georgeanne who was a shepherd mix and Chico (otherwise known as “Chickie-poo” or just Chickie), a little beagle-ish fellow. Georgie and Chickie were, of course, curious about the new guy on the cage and would come to sniff around and make friends (and scope out the possibility of snacking on a monkey chow if one strayed outside the cage). Mo handled this attention by a) pinching the dogs’ lips and/or b) pulling their eyelids, all the time feigning innocence by looking at me straight in the eye with an “I-don’t-know-what-my-hand-is-doing” expression on his sweet little face. The dogs quickly learned not to mess with Mo.

Eventually a third canine housemate joined us, a boxer pup named Schultz. Mo was extremely frustrated with this situation because Schultz was a dauntless marauder. He would come in, knock over the cage, and steal monkey chow right out from under Mo. Mo was at a loss because his usual modus operandi was totally ineffective. Try to pinch the lip on a boxer. Lips all over the place. Doesn’t phase them. And….ever find an eyelid on a boxer? Nope! Just big bulging eyes. With no recourse to manage Schultz’s impudent behavior, Mo spent a few weeks in serious pout mode. Until….the ultimate opportunity. Schultz had gotten his ears clipped, as boxers do, and, after the bandages came off, the first time he got within a leash length of the monkey cage, Mo jumped on his head and chomped him right in the stitches. Schultz never stole another monkey chow. Situation resolved.

Mo, who was clever like his older sib Kong had been, embarked on a career as an escape artist akin to Harry Houdini, renowned for freeing himself from shackles and straight jackets while in boxes under water. Mo’s leash was a lightweight cat leash attached to a lightweight cat collar cinched around his tiny waist as a belt. (Squirrel monkeys, as adults, generally weigh about 16-20 ounces and are quite skinny.) Mo first figured out how to shimmy out of the belt. He would stretch as tall as he could, thereby thinning out his body circumference (much like Kong when diving for tomatoes in the grocery) and wiggle the belt off over his hips and tail. A rather annoying trait when the human parents want to maintain a sense of tranquility in the household instead of, say, chaos. He further began to figure out how to manipulate the belt to unfasten it. And honed his skills even more by learning to unhook the leash from the belt. Mo, of course, would then get into all kinds of mischief, so mommy had to take dire measures and secure him inside the cage with the lid fastened. Guess what!! He learned to a) jimmy the lid, b) jimmy the tray on the bottom, c) unsnap the door, d) remove the food and water dishes, and e) bend the bars apart to get out and wreak havoc. (A favorite sport was getting into the cupboards and throwing his human brother’s snacks on the floor so the dogs could get them.) Finally, when I could not successfully contain him, I opened the basement door, threw a banana (his favorite) down the steps, and, when he went after it, banished him to the basement until we could get a cage that would hold him. Since he had the run of the basement and all the spider snacks he could find, he was relatively satisfied with the temporary arrangement. And, through all this, we loved him despite his incorrigibility!!! We quickly located a secure new cage that would keep him (and the household) safe during the times that he needed to be contained.

More Mo stories to come soon.

Kong was definitely a curious little fellow. He loved to explore, and he could be a bit manipulative in achieving his goals. One day in the sociology lab, he spotted the silver foil in a cigarette pack in the breast pocket of one of the grad students. (Back in those days, cigarettes generally came in packs rather than boxes.) Tobacco is bad for monkeys, so Mommy would not allow enough leash length to reach the pocket. (The student was sitting across the table from us.) Well, awhile after the cigarette pack had been, apparently, forgotten, Kong developed an intense fascination with a gooseneck study lamp that was attached to the table a ways down. He stared at it and tugged at his leash to get close enough to examine the lamp more closely. Little by little he inched his way there, and when he had gained enough slack in the leash to be able to reach out and touch the lamp, he vaulted 90 degrees to the right, straight onto the pocket with the cigarette pack. His little brain had managed to calculate the radius perfectly. It cost us a few knuckles to prevent his obtaining his tobacco prize!

Kong also enjoyed the occasional bug snack, so I had to be vigilant when we would be outdoors. I would be sitting in the grass and look down at Kong, perched on my knee, and find that him holding a huge spider and chowing down. Yikes!!! Not my fondest memories, as an arachniphobe.

Kong also loved to groom me and would spend quite a bit of time searching (futilely, I might add) for insects in my hair. He also enjoyed sitting on people’s chests and trying to pry open their lips. A fun little game. If he got the lips apart, he would then work on getting the teeth apart. Once he succeeded in that endeavor, he would peer in and study the uvula that hangs at the opening to the throat. Then…suddenly…a furry little arm would make a grab for said uvula. Fortunately, he never actually got hold of one, but he considered it good sport, all the same.

Here’s the thing: Kong was cute. Mr. Personality. Surrounded by friends and fans.

And then there was Mo.

A couple of years after Kong’s unfortunate demise (spilled baby food plums on a piece of woven fabric and tried to eat it off, thus choking, when we were not there to help him), we got Mo. Whereas Kong has cost $19.95 at the local discount store pet department, Mo was $25.95, the result of inflation. Mo, who we later realized was bigger than Kong had been as a baby, had most likely been netted from the rain forest, yanked away from his family and friends, and imported to the U.S., thus rather miffed at the tremendous disruption in his life. He was NOT Mr. Personality. Or Mr. Congeniality. Or Mr. Nice Guy. Mo tended to be a bit testy, pushy, domineering, and ornery.

More Mo Monkeyshines to come…….