The Ikea monkey that’s been feeding the 24-hour news cycle for over 48 hours now reminds me that I’ve had my own ill-advised and politically-incorrect-before-there-was-a-term-for-it adventures in simian stewardship.
It wasn’t the smartest decision she ever made, but when my financially challenged single mother was egged on by my uncle, her little brother, about her ability to provide fun for her three kids, she said, “Just watch me.” She turned her rusty car back to the Don Mills Plaza, and bought us a pet monkey for our two-bedroom, four-person Flemingdon Park apartment.
The Don Mills pet store sold yellow and black squirrel monkeys decades ago, and we were supplied with a small cage, a bag of monkey kibble and no real instruction beyond “You’ll do just fine.”
My sisters shared a bedroom. My mom slept on the living room couch leaving me my own room because she felt her 10 year-old son should have his own space, albeit one which I would now share with a disconcerted, 18-inch or so high primate.
Needless to say, my new pet was a big hit with my pint-sized pals who were certain I was steps away from the big time (or at least the big top) if only I could teach our raccoon-eyed creature some tricks. The monkey taught himself a few on his own, the most annoying, though briefly hilarious, being his ability to shit in his hand and then fling it through his bars at me, my family and friends. He also masturbated. A lot.
I kept my room stifling hot having decided I needed to replicate rainforest heat for this transplant from the tropics. We called him Mr. Chips. And our cat, like the rest of us, found him fascinating, often sleeping on top of his cage, his tail hanging lazily into the monkey’s confines.
Sharing a tiny apartment with a monkey was not without its challenges (for all species). But one of the greatest happenings in my little kid mind was the day he rode our cat.
It occurred during one of those rare and exciting cage-cleaning events when Mr. Chips was allowed to roam our apartment, though not dressed in either diaper, let alone a double-breasted shearling coat. Of course, my pals were on hand. As the cat lounged on my bed, Mr. Chips began inspecting his tail, grooming and dining on the feline’s fur. As the dutiful monkey worked his way along the body, the cat remained cautiously cool. Our little kid hearts raced at this inter-species co-operation. As Mr. Chips inevitably made his way to the cat’s head, he threw a leg over the beast, straddling the now stirring cat and holding tightly onto each ear. As the cat rose up, the monkey was now riding him cowboy style slowly across my bed. Our jaws dropped, eyes popped and we didn’t dare speak or even breathe.
Eventually the cat loosed himself of Mr. Chips, contemptuously hopping off the bed, leaving my friends to scream, “You’re going to be rich Mikey! You can get this on Ed Sullivan!”
I quietly and confidently nodded and smiled, my future now assured as a world famous monkey wrangler, my mind already racing to the excellent cowboy outfit and hat Mr. Chips would be wearing on his inevitable major network debut.
Sadly, the cat riding incident would be the peak in our monkey hosting as the protesting creature made it clear our tiny apartment and uninformed care was not what he had in mind. The shit-flinging grew more insistent, the masturbating more furious. The uncle who initiated this whole zoological mess was actually bitten by the beast. After almost nine months of inept care, my mother said we had to give him to the zoo.
His erratic late night howling and clear distaste for Flemingdon Park apartments silenced any protests we might have summoned. Even we knew he had to go and all hopes of a monkey-fuelled easy street were over.
We, like Darwin the Ikea Monkey’s owner decades after us, had learned that the city is no place for a monkey.
