Autobiography 3: Stanley the Squirrel Monkey Meets Mama - December 31 2024
My autobiography part 3: Stanley the squirrel monkey
I took Stanley home and put him in my bedroom. When my mother came home from the powdered metal plant, I broke the news to her. “Eh, mom. Don’t freak out, but I bought a monkey.”
“You bought a monkey!” she yelled, red-faced. “You cannot bring a monkey into this house. I won’t have it. Where is he? He’s got to go.”
“He’s in my bedroom in a cage. His name is Stanley.”
“No! No! No!” She stormed down the hall to my room and flung the door open. Stanley was hanging onto the bars looking at her. He was so cute. Her demeanor changed.
“Ah, I bet he’s hungry. Did you feed him?”
“Not yet.”
“Land of Goshen! He’s probably starving.” She went into the kitchen and grabbed a handful of grapes. Soon she was feeding him grapes and cooing. “Ah, he likes grapes. Why in the world did you buy a monkey?”
I prevaricated. “I’ve always wanted one. I used my insurance money, $300.”
Thus began the love affair with my mother and Stanley. I opened the cage and let him out. He jumped on her shoulder and nuzzled her. “Oh, my. He’s friendly.”
After that, Stanley had the run of the house. He would sit on my mother’s shoulder while she watched television.
Monkeys, like birds, poop whenever, wherever. We had record albums stacked in one of those spring-loaded metal poles that went from ceiling to floor with five basks full of Glenn Miller, Dean Martin, plus records I had ordered from the Columbia Clearing House. The first 12 were only a penny apiece.
Stanley’s favorite place to poop was down the face of the top front album, which was Jimi Hendrix Experience. I didn’t like that at all, so I switched out Jimi for Jerry Vale. Soon Jerry was unrecognizable, just a white patch of poop.
My friend Ward had just rented an apartment above a dry cleaner on Main Street and asked me to be his roommate. I still had three months of unemployment checks, so I said yes.
When I told my mother that I was moving in with Ward, and taking Stanley with me, she had a fit. “You are NOT taking that monkey out of this house. He is staying here with me.”
“Ah, mom,” I pleaded. “He’s my monkey.” She finally agreed. So, Ward and I and Stanley became roommates.
I spent my unemployment money on rent and board games. We bought Monopoly, Scrabble, Life, Risk, and a vibrating football field. We had lots of parties. My friends all wanted to meet Stanley and play games.
Stanley was never in his cage. He hung with the guys. He used to sleep in my friend Artie’s curly hair after sneaking a few sips of Pink Ladies.
One evening Ward, Artie, and I were at the kitchen table playing Scrabble and eating chicken legs. Stanley sat on top of the refrigerator watching us.
Suddenly Stanley jumped down onto the table, grabbed a chicken leg, leaped to the floor like King Kong capturing Fay Wray, and high-tailed it out of the kitchen and down the hall.
We ran after him, but couldn’t find him. Finally, we did. He had climbed up the drain pipe to the bathroom sink and was sitting on top of the elbow gnawing on that chicken leg. We laughed a good while and then let him keep it and went back to our Scrabble.
We had great fun in that apartment, but our fun ended when Ward, goofy Ward, came home with six white German Shepard puppies. “What the hell, Ward? What have you done?
He explained. “Well, I just wanted one puppy. You have a monkey. I wanted a dog.”
“Fine,” I said, “but you have six of them.”
He explained. “I couldn’t decide which one I wanted, and when I picked one, all the other puppies looked so sad that I took the whole litter.”
“You’re crazy, Ward. What are you going to do with them?”
“I’ll keep them in my bedroom. Don’t worry. I’ll feed them.”
“Where’s the litter box? You’ll need to house train them.” The apartment was owned by the dry cleaner downstairs and all the carpets where white.
“I’ll get the litter box soon. I’m out of money. Until then, I’ll just walk them regularly.”
Within minutes piles of poop plopped on the white carpet. He hadn’t bought collars or leashes for them. He went to his parents’ house and got a long piece of rope, which he cut into six pieces. He tied square knots over the dogs’ necks.
By then there were more piles of poop on the floor, which Ward tried to wipe up with a bathroom towel, also white. He smeared poop all over his floor while the dogs ran wild around the apartment, and Stanley hid on top of the refrigerator.
“Get your dogs leashed and get them out of here. And clean up all this poop. Damn it.”
Ward leashed his six puppies and took them down the steps, walking right past the front window of the dry cleaner. Several days and mountains of poop later, there was a knock at the door. It was the dry cleaner’s large son. He came in, saw poop everywhere and told us abruptly. “You guys are idiots, and you’re evicted. Today. Get you stuff and go, now.”
Ward gathered his things and his unnamed dogs and took them to his parents’ house. That’s the last I saw of them.
I gathered up my clothes, board games, and Stanley, and moved in with my older sister, Carol and Phil, who were cool with that. They liked Stanley, and board games.
Comments
Post a Comment