URASMUS

Not a misspelling, but rather, the name of a small furry entity.
[Pronounced: 'You-razz-muzz'. Emphasis on the first syllable.]


In the last year that we were in the old office building - the building with the bollixed heating and air-conditioning systems that necessitated heavy sweaters during hot weather and tee-shirts during cold - the pumpkin carving team headed by the bald elf in Marketing kidnapped the one-legged monkey from Product Design and fed him to a carved troll-head. I blame the bald elf. Not for the loss of the monkey's leg, as the degenerates in Product Design did that entirely by themselves, but for the neck-gash, ketchup, and ripped stuffing. They named their ketchuppy pumpkin creation "Too Curious George". It sat at the reception desk with the other halloween horrors.

Five days later, the various pumpkins had started to attract fruit-flies and smell funky, and were dumped in the waste-bin in the kitchen.
Where I found the monkey.

What kind of savage throws out a monkey? How sick and perverse does one have to be to consign a friendly looking furry being to the city dump? Especially one with soft synthetic fur and friendly glass eyes? A benign simian presence, staring up at one, reproachfully.

I saved him and took him home. Sewed up the gash, cleaned off the ketchup, and patched over the ragged edges where the leg had gone missing. As good as new.
Except for the leg, of course.
I was planning to make him a wooden one, but never did.


In the first year he would blame me for the loss of his leg. He didn't remember the sadists in Product-Development, and accused me of cutting off his leg and eating it, with ketchup.
I guess the trauma played havoc with his memory. That, plus the fact that his brain was cotton wool - probably from hanging out with Elmo (the Elmo in product design held a glass of whiskey, had a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, and looked crazed with brain-rotting syphilis - Elmo the dypsomaniac, Elmo the street-person, bumming coins for a dance).

In the second and third year he said that I looked like his mother, and demanded more bananas. He also lost his Jamaican accent.

Nowadays he claims that I am a degenerate and that he is the alpha-male of the household.
And he very well might be, at this point. I am merely the human, whereas he looks like Humphrey Bogart.

Savage Kitten wants him to return her slinky silk blouse, but the monkey just looks so darned handsome wearing it. Dashing. Suave. Alpha to da max. A veritable dude. She's probably lost that frippery to the monkey permanently. Never gonna get it back.
Lately, he's started eyeing her pearls.