Interview with a monkey

This is my interview with a monkey I will call, Bucky. His name has been changed to protect the innocent.

Bucky lives with a nice lady scientist. That’s how I found him. He had grown up in the zoo, but he knows about the jungle because his mother came from there. Now he is at a university research lab.

Anyway, I asked him when I first saw him, well first I asked if I could interview him and got his consent. He was fascinated by the idea of a Zine…especially one that had been associated with an online community called CLAW. He wondered for a moment why he never had heard of it and why his mother hadn’t been a member or why she hadn’t even heard of it. I explained the why, that was a club for cats only. He was amazed at how cats discriminate against other species. So I asked if monkeys didn’t, too. He said…it’s hard to tell what monkeys do when you’re in a zoo. I never thought of that or I would have asked my mother if my ancestors did or not. He was somewhat saddened at the thought of not knowing them.

Later, I asked what he did all day and how could he? He replied he worked with humans on a computer and he would get fed. Now this got me curious, what could he work on to get paid for it? He told me they wanted to communicate and see if I could learn their language.

I was amazed. “You mean, you get to be on a computer and surf the web?” He replied he didn’t know how a spider trap could be surfed and why he’d be interested. I realized we were having a major communication problem here, so I informed him about the Internet. He didn’t know about that either. Well, I have to tell you I spent some time explaining about cyberspace and computers, the joys and frustrations and all that.

We finally realized that the humans who used him, oh, he didn’t use the word used, he thought this scientist was like family and he was just earning his keep. Hmmmm, note to all the cats out there, monkeys do not have catitude! They are fine creatures, but still they are lacking.

I got off track about this use stuff because it’s not his dear handler who uses him, it’s the people she works with who want him to form words with their picture cards that are on what they call a computer. Hmmmpf! That description makes me think of a child’s toy. Anyway…he gets bananas when he works on this.

He seems to like bananas. Monkeys are strange, aren’t they? Me, I’d go for fish. I had one burning question, did he realize that with opposable thumbs he could open cans of cat food? I posed that question to him. He was flummoxed about a can opener or why he’d want to even open a can. Well, that shows why interspecies marriages cannot prosper. Bananas! Not want to open a can, where are the monkey’s priorities? Just beyond comprehension! Cats would die on bananas. Don’t know what would happen if a monkey learned the joys of canned food…Now not much can impurrove on canned cat food…unless it is food we get that is swimming, flying or on the run and fresh. I should have queried the monkey about that. Maybe, I’ll do another interview. Well, this was enough for now interviewing a monkey was exhausting! …I mean I may go back and teach him a thing or two, but for this issue, I am calling it quits and I am going to go home and catnap.

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