Monkeys, bloody monkeys

I called this blog Another Monkey for various reasons, which I detailed here. The name has nothing to do with some sort of monkey-related obsession, 'cause I don't have one. But that didn't stop my friends from deciding that that must be the reason. I finally got tired of trying to explain, and decided to just let them get me whatever monkey-related stuff they felt like.

It's added up over the past few months. Here's a sampling from the collection:


Monkeys

Starting from the center and spiraling out clockwise:

- a monkey necklace bought in Stone Harbor during our vacation last August
- a wooden monkey cutout, painted and with a magnet glued to its back
- the Scholastic book "Monkeys and Apes", which lists lemurs as either monkeys or apes*
- a bookmark featuring three monkeys and the sexually-suggestive slogan "It's all about the banana"
- a small articulated monkey by Boyd's
- a sitting chocolate monkey by Michael Mootz**, a local candy company
- an "EXOTIC HANGIN PRIMATE" from Toys 'R' Us (at least, that's how it was described on the sales receipt)
- Supermonkey (with Super Slingshot Action!), Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price $9.99, purchased for $1 at a junk store
- another chocolate monkey from John L. Stopay's Candy**, this one on a scooter, naked except for a small cap and what appear to be buccaneer boots, highly detailed on both sides

The smile on the chimpanzee on the cover of the Scholastic book is probably the last thing you would see before it chews off your face, tears off your foot, and bites off your genitals.

*Actually, it doesn't. It's careful to list lemurs as "related to monkeys." My mistake. Still, if you're writing a book for kids called "Monkeys and Apes", you should probably not prominently feature things that are neither monkeys nor apes. It's kinda like all the dinosaur books that list the Dimetrodon, Pteranodon, Plesiosaur, Smilodon (saber-toothed tiger), and Mastodon with the "dinosaurs".

**Both of these chocolate monkeys were originally attributed to a candy maker called Pelas's, which is now closed. We sure have a lot of local candy companies!