When I was a teenager, my parents were missionaries in Kenya and we lived in the middle of nowhere. Take a day's drive to the nearest gas station. There are many monkeys and baboons in the area.
Sometimes locals shoot monkeys that are eating the vegetables they are trying to grow in their gardens. When monkeys are young, they will sleep cuddled up next to their mother, who will do whatever it takes. If someone shoots the mother, this leaves behind a baby that they consider useless and will usually keep or kill it.
However, these weird white guys (us) showed up recently, so they decided to try and sell them to us. My mother also grew up in Africa (Congo) and knew better, so she told us no. The children started throwing the monkey in the air and laughed as it looked around for its mother. Dad almost lost his mind about it, he kicked the kids away and we got a pet monkey. It was a vervet monkey... like this:
We expected it to die. Its eyes haven't opened yet. But we fed it nuts and seeds and tried to give it milk using a little rubber glove with pinholes in the fingers. Somehow it survived.
We had a stuffed bear, and my mother took out most of the stuffing and put a bottle of hot water on it. The monkey will cling to it and sleep most of the time.
Finally it opened its eyes and was no longer fooled by the stuffed teddy bear. It will scream until you put it against your neck or ankle, and then it will immediately go to sleep. It doesn't seem that bad, except that it pees/offers in your sleep and you end up letting it run down your neck or shoes. This happens about once an hour.
My brother was one year old at the time, so my mom had some diapers and she cut them up and made some monkey diapers. The fabric was too thick for the monkey and his legs stretched out to the side. It didn't like that, so it took them away. We didn't like that, so we put them back. that's all.
My mother knitted a small overall to hold the diaper in place. The monkey didn't like that...its arms were now out to the side too and it had to waddle. Kind of like those kids you see on the ski slopes wearing giant puffy jackets. But it worked for a while.
it got bigger. It chewed through its overalls. Mom made bigger ones with stronger thread. It still has to ride on you wherever you go. If you put it down it will bite. If you tie it up, it will throw a tantrum (which is kind of funny, to be honest). It would jump on the ground, then look up to the sky and pump its fists in anger. It can't get out of the overalls, but it can reach in, grab a turd, and throw it at you when it gets mad.
We were hit with a lot of shit in those days.
it got bigger.
One day, we were having dinner. He was sitting in my brother's high chair eating nuts, water and fruit while the rest of us ate what we had. We thought it would be fun to replace its bowl of water with Sprite. It was quite funny... It took a sip and then pushed it away with a shocked look on its face. Then he carefully pulled it back and poked it with a finger. Then it would stare at it and lean in to listen to it. Then suddenly it drank it all and started screaming. We gave him some more water, but after tasting it he threw the bowl to us and refused to drink.
Two days have passed... The monkey can't stand up straight, but as long as we give it water, it will smell it, look at us, slowly turn it over, and then fall next to it.
We gave in. From then on, the monkey only drank soda.
We magnetically attach the bottle opener to the refrigerator. It learned to get it, it learned where the soda is. It would lie on its back, pull the soda onto it, and yank the lid with a corkscrew until the soda poured over itself and the floor. Then it would sip it from the floor and open all the other bottles. We rarely drink soda, it's expensive, but we have a wet, slimy, angry monkey.
We hid the soda and it found it.We locked them in the suitcase. It figured out how to open it. We locked the trunk. It found the key. We hid the key, it found it and hid it. We stack the blocks on top. It pushes them away somehow. It then methodically stole all the sodas and hid them in the wooden frame of our sheet metal house. Whenever a storm comes, it rains glass soda bottles.
it got bigger. Now when I bite it, it really hurts.
It moves around on its hind legs and is still wearing the latest version of overalls and diapers. It has developed a pot belly and looks like a fat and irritable old man. It pretty much went where it liked. Dad built a welded cage around the soda bottle and he would occasionally bump into it and throw poop at it.
One day, we were having dinner and we ran out of fruit. We had these cookies after dinner called " digestive cookies " and it saw us eating them. It suddenly jumped up, grabbed the box, flew to the rafters and , and ate them all. Then he refused to eat fruit or nuts...only cookies.
About three hours later, he was sitting at the table with us, holding a cookie and drinking soda from the bottle. While stuffing biscuits into its mouth, it suddenly started and fell to the ground dead.
