YOU NEED BANANAS!

Many people have monkeys on their back. This blogger has a monkey on his lap. Which is much better. An eleven inch tall gorilla.
The Control Monkey.

In case you didn't know, a control monkey is the simian against which all others are measured. As well as being the overseer during an office move.
It is axiomatic that the properly organized office move (such as, for instance, from San Francisco to Hayward or any other poxy East-Bay hell hole) should have a control monkey making sure that credenzas and desks being wheeled down the hall at high speed to the assembly area in the big conference room, from whence the movers will take them to the freight elevator, do not crash into cubicle walls or structural pillars.

It is a VERY important task, which requires calmness, maturity, and sound judgement. An even-keeled personality, in other words. Alert & observant.

Afterwards he came home with me, and since that day he has lived here.
Contributing a civilized air to the household.
He's a super-nice little fellow.
Very lovable.


Naturally the other monkey is resentful. He (Urasmus Wazzoo) believes that Arabello Oyster is an usurper and an upstart. A degenerate African who will subvert everything good and proper. And steal all the bananas.
Damned immigrant!
My bananas!

Urasmus has been verbally abusive.

Mr. Oyster has taken it all with considerable grace.

Quite entirely as befits someone wearing a t-shirt which says: 'make a difference - preserve, conserve'. His presence will not lessen our quantity of bananas, but will almost certainly cause it to increase.


All households should have monkeys. And bananas.


That's just the way it is.



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AN ACCOMODATING MAN

When I left the house shortly after mid-day, my roommate was zonked out on my bed, curled up with a teddy bear, a degenerate monkey, a froad (i.e. "weird green flippery guy"), several other beasts, and a book about the sexual shenanigans of British royalty.
Her back aches, and it's close to her monthly period. She's in discomfort, and kinda tired.

According to my calculations, the menses are actually due to hit this Wednesday, although they have been one or two days early in the past.
I'm figuring her current cycle at 27 days.
Yes, I'm keeping count - I'm a Dutchman, and I'm neurotic.
Even though it's none of my business, it's good to know these things.

[She's my roommate, but we used to be more involved with each other. That ended quite a while ago. Regarding the cycle-count, I may have mentioned that I'm both neurotic and Dutch - those two characteristics overlap considerably, though not all Dutch are neurotic, and many neurotic people are not actually Dutch. They just as well could be.]


CROWD OF ROWDY FURBALLS

My bed is the larger one in the apartment. It accommodates many more stuffed animals than hers. Though she, being a very slender person, does not cramp them for space when they're over on her side.
Some of them are hers - kitten, teddy bear, froad (the 'WGFG'), cat, small bovine, orange beaver, vampire guinea pig, she-sheep, pervert serpent, and most of the frogs - some are mine: monkey, sock-sheep, big black spider, Steiff raccoon, and all the degenerates.
Plus three dysfunctional teddy bears, a psychopathic hamster, and the odd penguin or two.
It is interesting that she seeks out my critters for comfort.
Partly, I think, because they are rowdy and argumentative.
Anarchists with criminal tendencies, admittedly, but very social.
How I ended up with all the rioters I do not know.
For I myself am a very gentle man.
Quiet and soft-spoken.
Even-keeled.
Calm.


You may stop laughing now. You've made your point. Really, it's rather rude to burst into loud peals of sneering hilarity while someone else is talking.


Actually, I don't know how comforting the WGFG can be at present. Lately he's been venomously speculating about eating the monkey's brain, though he fears it will taste all nanky, and there probably isn't very much there.
But the monkey deserves to die, and he, the FROAD, is determined that the demise will be soon, cruel, and bloody. Stupid monkey, chop you!
The monkey has been making fun of the froad's gas problem, you see.
It's all been very hurtful, and both of them are upset.
Loudly and operatically so.

Given all that going on, in my bed nota bene, you will grasp why I came to the office today.
It's just too darn noisy at home. What with her sleeping and all.
The office is nice and peaceful. I daydream at my desk.
I do the same when the apartment is empty.
I often spend all weekend here.

On the way down I stopped by a bakery in Chinatown and picked up some snackies.
I doubt that she'll have the energy to cook herself something to eat.
A cup of hot milk-tea and a pastry should be just the ticket.
At the very least it will give her the energy to return to her own room and apologize to the other roomies for being gone all day.



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ALL THESE RIOTOUS BEASTS!

This morning, when I returned from the shower, I found a most disconcerting sight: the Froad was perched on my clothes holding my wallet, and the one-legged monkey (Urasmus) was on my bed with a handbag.
No, I do NOT know why a fuzzy green critter needs money or wants to steal my credit card!

The more disturbing thing is the monkey's 'gender issue'. He's been that way since that accident in the product development department that cost him his leg. Or maybe it was the evil elf in Marketing, who slashed his throat, covered him in ketchup, and stuffed him inside a pumpkin during the Halloween carving contest in 2003.

Urasmus (the monkey) has, mercifully, forgotten all about those nasty events.
But he's been confused ever since.

Like most of the roomies on my side of the apartment he's not entirely sane. He's 'otherwise realitied'.

Savage Kitten's roomies are not like that.

The only roomie on her side who is even mildly nuts is Ms. Bruin, the senior Teddy Bear - who is very upset that my apartment mate spends so much time with Wheelie Boy (Savage Kitten's love interest), and keeps muttering "kill, kill', whenever his name is mentioned.


But that brings up an issue.

What if, hypothetically, a nice young lady comes over to visit me?
Time is not a problem, as Savage Kitten is absent for several hours at a stretch. Plenty of scope for a bit of ..... tea.

The problem is "animalistic" in nature.

How are the roomies going to handle it?


THE HYPOTHETICAL NICE YOUNG LADY

I have this nightmare vision of the Froad patting her down, trying to find her wallet. Or the monkey offering to give her a beehive haircut.
The Lord only knows what Totoro and the blue frog would do.

I suppose I could put them in Savage Kitten's room for the duration.
Except that when all the roomies are together, a riot ensues. One of them will say something outrageous, insults will fly, and there will be thumping and yells.
You can see that this precisely would NOT be conducive to romance.
No one can really put their heart into playing touchie-feelie when there's noise from the other room; it's too distracting.

Maybe I could bribe Angus (the she-sheep with the pretty pink bows) and Ms. Bruin to keep the critters quiet, perhaps tell them a story. That might work.

Alternatively, I could put my roomies on the chair in the teevee room, with a movie on the telly.
The problem with that scheme is that the young lady and I would then have to spend all our time in my bedroom.

Oh wait..... That's sort of the point.


It's still entirely hypothetical, though.

Haven't met anyone with just the right personality. She'll have to get along with my rowdy roommates. The Froad is a hamsaplo, the monkey pushes the envelope, the sock-sheep wants all the attention and admiration he can get. There's also the lizard......
The Raccoon is just nuts - he thinks he's German, and he's a panty thief.
I haven't yet mentioned the violent hamsters or the weasel, nor even the three dysfunctional Teddy Bears that also live on my side.


As you can plainly see, a suitable young lady would have to be exceptional.
Even if all we plan to do is quietly sit together, reading and drinking tea.
A kind and tolerant person with an affinity for little troublemakers.
Someone with imagination, who gets along with rambunctious hairballs.


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SMALL GANGSTERS

The other day, my roommate Savage Kitten was gloating over the white hairs she had pulled out.
White hairs will show up a bit more on her head than on mine, and like many women she is far more concerned about her appearance than she has any reason to be.
She looks delicious, always has.
But she attends to details - stray whites get yanked.

Which is why we have any number of tweezers in the house.
We do not share a bed, but we share the tweezers.
We have tweezers in common.
Several of them.

We share a number of things: the television room, the kitchen - pots, pans, plates, cutlery, and implements - the hallway, and the bathroom.

We do NOT share the roomies. That being the small stuffed entities such as the sock-sheep, the violent piglet, the one-legged monkey, the froad, and the chief roomie (ms. Bruin), otherwise known as 'The Senior Teddybear'.

She only has one teddy bear, I have three.

The first one I found one night sitting all by himself on a bench at a bus-stop for a line that stopped running after seven in the evening. So I took him home.
The second one appeared one day and never left.
The third bear was patiently waiting outside a local drugstore after closing time.
Long after closing time.

All my teddy bears have 'issues'.

Actually, most of my little furry roommates are problematic.
I can't figure it out.
Why are hers sane, and mine unbalanced?
And how come the nuts are in my room?

So yes, we do NOT share the roomies. She has hers, I have mine.
She channels for ALL of them, they speak with her voices.
The other day one of them jabbed me with the tweezers.
Then scurried off giggling.

I suppose I should've worried when I saw the little miscreant with the tweezers.
None of the little sh*tdisturbers have white hair.
Riotous behaviour - it keeps them young.
They're thugs, I tell you.
Short fuzzy thugs.



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PROTECT YOUR CREDIT CARD

You cannot always get what you want. Life isn't fair, nor is it realistic to expect that it be so.

This blogger is at all times a realist. That's why I've told the monkey that no, he cannot have a banana plantation, and I have no intention whatsoever of allowing him to fondle my "plasticky thing" (credit card). I know what he'd do with it. The moment I'm out of sight, he'll be using it to purchase a plot of land with bananas, from an outfit that normally sells parcels of submerged swamp in Florida. He also wants to run a wig shop.

See, the monkey has absolutely NO business sense.
He isn't a realist.
I am.


You can't always get what you want.

But you CAN get dinner.


Savage Kitten and I are going out to an Indian restaurant this evening.

She suggested it, which means that I will have to fight her for the honour of paying the bill. She's rather stubborn that way.
But she's the one that needs cheering up (boyfriend issues), so I'm determined to win this fight.
I'm paying. Me. No, I will not rochambeau you for it. Hush, small woman.
You insisted on paying last time.
My turn.



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LOVE APE AND COLLECTIONS ARMADILLO

Very recently I wrote a post which may not have entirely pleased one of my regular readers. No, I shan't describe it for you, you must figure out for yourself which of my many beautiful posts it may have been. I thought it was both poetic and lyrical. But the content was, perhaps, the issue that divided......


The regular reader commented:
"Too much tobacco, too much flesh. I want to hear more about the armadillo and the naughty monkey. "


What can I say about the armadillo and the naughty monkey? The naughty monkey always sides with Savage Kitten, and the armadillo simply hangs around in my cubicle all day.

I suspect that when night falls the armadillo really wakes up and becomes active, as there are several photos of him messing with the desk of my most neurotically neat colleague, disturbing her carefully aligned file folders, chewing her pencils, and tapping away at her keyboard...... besides rooting around her desk-drawers and sniffing disdainfully at the picture of her little son.

He's also sat at the desk of the owner of the company. Photocopied his own butt. Danced provocatively on one of the engineer's desks, and fondled all the awards in the lobby.

The armadillo is no respecter of property. Clearly an anarchist.


Thank heavens the armadillo hasn't figured out how to use the phone yet.

Please imagine him calling up the armadillo phone-sex line in Texas (staffed by those zesty big-plated mamas before they become roadkill) - if he ever did that, we would discover him the next morning looking all blissed out, with a big silly grin all over his face. And drool all over the receiver.
Whatever phone he had used would have to be destroyed.


Oh wait. And never mind. I just sexed the armadillo. He's not a him, but a her.

[Either that or the taxidermist took a "shortcut".]


The monkey, on the other hand, keeps dialing up the SPCA to rat on me. But those are his only calls.
He'll probably never phone 976-LOVEAPE, as he is far too visually inclined. He needs to actually see the thick soft hair on those delicious she-monkey thighs and calves; merely having it described doesn't do diddly for him.

[Besides, I think he actually has some 'gender issues'. He IS wearing one of her silk shirts and a necklace...... ]

I just hope he never discovers porn. Or the Curious George books.

MY STOMACH SPEAKS!

I have a great fondness for hairy men. The shaggier, the better.
In fact, I often wish that there were more excessively furry men walking around naked or nearly so, so that I could point at them and tell Savage Kitten "see, hon, I really ain't that hairy".
I have barely any pelt at all.


"I am a smooth man, but my brother Esau is a hairy man. I am a smooth man."
-----Jacob Isaacsen Abrahamsen van Oer, a notorious inheritance cheat and smooth operator.


The problem with Savage Kitten is that she has a thing for furry anthropomorphic creatures. The froad. The head sheep. The one-legged monkey who stole her finest silk shirt. The various kung-fu hamsters (which were at Walgreens around kretchmuchtime 2003). Louise, Piggelt, and Bucky.

And my stomach.

She calls my stomach 'Fuzz Bert'. And in her presence, Fuzz Bert speaks. Usually he vehemently disagrees with whatever I have just said. Fuzz Bert also says very provocative things, and clearly believes that Savage Kitten needs help against me.
Fuzz Bert, alas, finds me wanting in many respects.
I have threatened to punch Fuzz Bert if he keeps insulting me, but his only reaction was "go ahead, big boy, I dare you".



FUZZ BERT AND THE TWINS

This morning Fuzz Bert had a very long talk with the Harry Twins - those being, I have been led to believe (by both Savage Kitten and Fuzz Bert), my buttocks. Given that all three of these rambunctious members of the household were fully covered, it would have been fitting if they had modestly kept quiet. But no. Unseen they may have been, unheard they certainly weren't. Making my morning coffee with those three in the kitchen, just chattering away, proved quite a challenge. I am not fully sentient before the caffeine hits me, and am easily distracted. Even confused - can't yet think without that cup of wake-me-up.
Conversation that early adds stress.

Savage Kitten, on the other hand, thoroughly enjoyed their discussion. Their loud and boisterous criticism of the toad (me) did not interfere in any way with her breakfast preparations. She calmly went about making hot cocoa and a plate of potato nibbles while they conversed, without the slightest fuss or interruption, even interjecting a few cogent comments at times, which Fuzz Bert and the Harry Twins (Alfred and Aethelred) happily seized upon and further developed.

Once my coffee was ready I returned to the other room and sat down. Which shut up Alfred and Aethelred.
I wish it would've had the same effect on Fuzz Bert, but the noisy bugger followed me.

I SMELL SMOKE!

One of the things boys do is push boundaries. By which I mean that they engage in a pattern of behaviour calculated to extend the limits of the permissible. This despite the rules that have been set by adults. It's an addictive behaviour. Boys do it much more than little girls, hence the sexist generalization in my statement.


Many little boys grow up. And still push the boundaries. Which explains the large number of twenty-something males yelling slurs and puking on sidewalks every weekend. Or driving down busy downtown streets looking for prostitutes, screaming, shouting, and gaily waving their privates.
Somehow these are good things, beneficial to business, economic achievement, or something. Money is being spent, which pleases the San Francisco merchants and politicians no end.
It's very middle-class, and one of the rocks upon which our great country is built.


I mention all of this, because Savage Kitten lacks a certain balanced perspective regarding my behaviour.


The other night I was sitting in the television room, very innocently minding my own business, when she yelled from her room "I smell smoke!"
This was not apropos of nothing at all, by the way.
So I hollered back "whut?"
"I smell smoke!!"
"Probably your imagination!!"
"I smell smoke!!!"
"Oh, so you're over your cold, then???"

This exchange could've gone on for several more minutes, except that she came stomping into the room and glared at me.
I pointed at the monkey and said "it was him!!!!!".

[The monkey was introduced in this post:
http://atthebackofthehill.blogspot.com/2008/09/happiness-is-quarrelling-with-monkey.html
He is less than a foot tall, missing a leg since that unfortunate accident in the product-development department, and he wears a colourful silken women's shirt which was "just lying there ownerless in the womany-thing's room". He looks very innocent.]


This accusation generated howls of outrage. The monkey, it was forcefully asserted, was wholly blameless. Nay, far otherwise even, the monkey undoubtedly had remonstrated with the smoker, and warned him against puffing a pipe in the television room. The monkey was resolutely opposed to many and several of my behaviours, my dissipation appalled him! And it was obvious that I was a bad man, and did not love the monkey!


For the rest of the evening I 'pushed the boundaries of acceptable behaviour' in the kitchen.
I was undisturbed in this endeavor, as Savage Kitten and the Monkey enjoyed each other's company without my sulfurous presence. They were very firm about this.

Consequently I smoked THREE bowls of strong Virginia flake - finished the bowl in the two-tone Canadian which had betrayed me, continued with a fully bent billiard with a natural finish, then enjoyed a large semi-natural Canadian. All smoked slowly. It was yummy.

This morning, when I woke up, it felt like a camel had climbed into my mouth and died. Rasty. Fur-tongue. Dry, acrid, pelt-like. Slightly rotten and rancid. Yech.
I must have spent too much time in the kitchen last night.

I'm blaming the monkey. He could have put in a good word for me with Savage Kitten.

TOBACCO INDEX


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HAPPINESS IS QUARRELLING WITH A MONKEY

It was a lovely weekend. We did not go anywhere.


San Francisco was nice and quiet, the streets between our house and the Indian Restaurant near Japantown were glorious in the afternoon sunlight; dust-motes refracted in slanting beams, the lengthened shade of trees; after several months of gloom we are finally enjoying some summer weather.

So of course we stayed indoors most of the time.

Sunday and Monday I paddled around the house in my bare feet, wearing baggies and a wife-beater, and smoking a tobacco that I will not confess to liking or reveal the name of before I post a defensive review on this blog - It's aza sleazy and kurvedik that it absolutely requires apologesis, despite the extremely reputable company that produced it.
It is not as bad as some of the coconut-peach-mango rum-topf perfume abortions that many suburban tobacconists vend, but it's pretty darn shameless. A veritable brass-pole slut.
Albeit a very fine product.

A pattern became apparent during the day. The stuffed monkey would start making nasty comments about some of the other roomies, and after a few minutes of arguing with him, I would send him to the corner, and head into the kitchen with a pipe for some peace and quiet.

What kind of nasty comments did he make? Really cruel ones. Judge for yourself.
About the sock-goat: "He smells all nanky, la."
About the small she-sheep: "Of course she's stupid - she's a pretty little girlie!"
About the froad: "Nasty green flippery guy."
About the hand-puppet spider: "Him evil - squash the bug."
About the little punk piglet: "Juicy pork!"

These are not the kind of comments a gentleman would make. Nor would a gentleman suggest that the froad has a gas problem, that the piglet could easily miss a limb - she has four ("more than enough for such a lazy creature!"), or that the sock-goat had no feelings because he was inferior and inbred. That, plus his insistence that he himself looked like Humphrey Bogart ("the world's handsomest Philippino"), and that Ms. Bruin had it in for him, would be enough to send any man into the kitchen. Often. With pipes and fruity tobacco.

Ten bowls full.
Big bowls.
Full of perfumy tobacco.

Don't blame me if the kitchen now reeks like a Portuguese dance hall.

It's all the monkey's fault.

-------------------------------

Savage Kitten lazed about reading during most of Sunday and Monday. And occasionally had a snack. Slices of melon, plus peaches, plums, and a large bag of sour-cream and onion chips. She was exceptionally lazy. Which is davka what Labor Day is all about.
I shan't even mention her crazy theory that it is okay to be slovenly on Labor Day because one is rejecting the tyranny of middle-class salary-prompted value-systems.
I have no idea what that means, but it is probably wrong. After all, she's a pretty little...........

EVIL MONKEY!

Over five years ago I brought a monkey home. No, not a wild-beast monkey. He is not an actual protein and bone animal. But he is a very real monkey none the less.

He is missing a leg.

I do not know how he lost the leg. He was in the product-development lab for over a year, palling around with Elmo the dancing street-alcoholic (who carried a gag glass of bourbon in his hands, and had a cigarette in his mouth), and occasionally pan-handled on the shelf with deconstructed Barbie dolls (sluts!) for spare change. He never said much.
Elmo would sometimes dance, or obey the prompting of a boot and fly across the room.

The head of the marketing department "borrowed" the monkey for a Halloween pumpkin-carving project. He reappeared with a gashed neck, dripping ketchup, in the jaws of an orange ghoul. For a few days the carved pumpkins were at the front desk. They moved to the kitchen by mid-week, and ended up in the garbage Friday afternoon.
Which is where I found the monkey.

Monkeys do NOT belong in landfill.

I took the one-legged monkey home. He soon acquired a name (U-rasmus), and started developing..... personality. A lot of personality.
He cannot remember the leg incident, but sometimes has nightmares about pumpkins (the gash was stitched up, and has healed just fine, thank you).

Urasmus likes to play 'Fay Wray' with the little she-sheep (she hates it). He wishes to squish the sheep's boy friend - a handpuppet spider - because he dislikes bugs. He has discovered the saw and threatens Little George and the Ham-STAR.
The monkey disrespects the froad, disses the kitten, and fights with the sock-goat.
He demands to go the all-banana restaurant, and tries to steal my wallet. My bowl of laundry money is relatively safe, as unlike other monkeys, he cannot climb very well (not because of the missing limb - probably ADD). He is an all-round thoroughly disreputable chap, and often has to spend time in the corner. He fears Ms. Bruin, who is the head-roomie, and he trembles when she gives him that stern look of disapproval.


I mention all of this in connection with an article that Savage Kitten sent me from our local newspaper. See here: Urasmus!!!


Quote: "A security guard spotted the monkey near ticket gates in Shibuya Station........ around 30 policemen surrounded the area and attempted to snare it with a variety of nets, as commuters crowded around and snapped pictures with their cell phones.
The standoff ended when the monkey climbed down and dashed out of the station, with several policeman and local TV crews in tow. News reports said the monkey was last seen heading in the direction of nearby Yoyogi Park."


There are two photos in that article. I cannot tell whether the monkey in question has four limbs or just three. If it is four, I wonder where he got the prosthetic.

Turns out the little devil is much cleverer than I thought. I guess I'll have to put my wallet in a secret place every night from now on.

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.