The Thelmian Chronicles

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…….

Kong spent many of his days in the Sociology department of the university, tethered by his leash to the leg of a chair, chomping on his favorite snack (apples), and basking in the sun and the attention of staff and students. One day I returned from class to find an empty room, bits of apple peel, tangible evidence that there had recently been a monkey there, open windows….and no Kong. Panic!!! Oh, my goodness! My monkey is swinging through the trees of the university! How will I ever find him? I frantically began to run up and down the halls of the Sociology building and, when I got to the second floor, I spied the one of the professors (a large, booming man who terrified me with his powerful presence) walking down the hallway with what appeared to be a tail down his back. As I cautiously approached him from behind, I could see Kong peeking over his shoulder and little grubby monkey handprints all over the back of his white dress shirt. Relieved (and still terrified), I got close enough that Kong made a leap for Mommy, and the professor turned around and explained, “While you were gone, we had Kong on my desk, and he did a number on a memo from the university president, so I decided he was a very intelligent monkey who should be befriended and taken for a walk.” After that, the level of my intimidation decreased markedly. Months later, when I became pregnant, the professor would ask me whether I had been preparing Kong for sibling rivalry. After my son was born, the daily questions was “How’s Kong’s little brother?”

Kong and his little brother actually got along quite well. At home, Kong’s leash was tethered to a little red stool at one end of the dining room, and my son spent time in an old wood-slat playpen at the opposite end. The baby figured out how to stand up and yank on the playpen bars to hop it down the room toward Kong; then he would sit down and stick his feet out so the monkey could pull his socks off. After that was accomplished, he would share his baby bottle with Kong who would immediately bite off the nipples so he could finish the milk. We went through a plethora of baby bottle nipples!

One day when a friend was visiting, she was sitting on the sofa, and Kong was sitting next to her facing with back of the sofa and with his long tail hanging down over the front. (FYI, squirrel monkeys do not have prehensile tails, but they can use them for balance.) My son, being ever curious, crawled over the sofa, spotted the tail, pulled himself up on his knees and gave a very impressive yank! Kong made a complete 360-degree turn, and locked eyes with the baby. One could watch the mental processes as he thought “Baby!! Intense pain!! Can’t bite the baby!” at which point he turned 90 degrees to his left and inflicted a nasty hole in my friend’s hand. He knew she did not pull his tail. He knew exactly who did pull his tail. But he would NOT bite his little brother.

As mentioned above, Kong loved apples. Back in the “good old days”, health laws were not yet in place that prevented animals (for example, monkeys) from the premises. So Kong enjoyed shopping for groceries with me at a small local market where would could drop off the wash at the attached laundromat and get supplies for the week. He would happily ride on the handle of the cart as I gathered needed items. When we got to the produce department, Kong would spot the lovely red tomatoes (same color as apples, of course). Another FYI: squirrel monkeys weight about a pound and can sit in the palm of one’s hand. But they are long, lanky little beings who, when stretching out their arms and legs, can become 24 inches long or so. So Kong would spot the tomatoes, shoot out and grab one (the weight of which would pull him upside down, hanging by his feet), take one bite (“Ewww, tomato! Not apple! Heavy! Ewww!”) Splat!! Drops tomato! The dutiful little clerk would come with the mop and sweep up the floor. They never charged me for the tomatoes — because he was so cute, I guess. (Note: at the time I was young, quite poor, and not too bright about the social ramifications of having a monkey in a public place. He was, after all, my first child.)

I am pretty sure that Kong, to his credit, somehow never pooped in the grocery store. In fact, he was generally quite polite — except when scared (which made carrying a towel a requirement, since people tended to approach him, hands outstretched, asking, “Does he bite?” I would point out that anything with teeth has potential, but would ad that there was a better chance of being pooped upon. They would back up fairly quickly. Interestingly, my husband at the time believed that the way to train him not to poop on a person was to smack him. So, operating on that theory, he smacked Kong once for pooping on him. After that smack Kong took every opportunity when within a leash-length of his dad to poop on him…very deliberately! My potty training method consisted of putting Kong down while exclaiming “EEEWWWW!!” He quickly learned that pooping on a person resulted in social rejection, and he was very much a people person, so he learned how to lean out around someone to miss them entirely if the need would strike while he was being held by someone. He was very fond of riding on shoulders and cuddling.