Today’s guest post comes to us courtesy of Becca, who blogs at StickyJamHands.com I think you’ll enjoy this one, and if you do… please check out her website for more. Have yourselves a great day, my friends! See ya soon. -Jeff
Hello and Merry Christmas* fellow Surf Reporters.
In the spirit of Christmas I thought it would be most fitting to regale you all with one of my most asked about experiences involving… angry monkeys. What says Christmas better than angry monkeys? So little comes to mind.
Let me preface this by telling you that I have not done a lot of international travel. I have lived on both coasts and seen much of the United States but I have only been “overseas” twice – so this entire post may paint me both worldlier and more pretentious than I am. But I don’t really care what you think.**
Several years ago before we made it official and bought a house and produced offspring my then boyfriend and I scored a trip to Spain to spend 10 glorious days drunk on sangria and bloated from too much olive oil. It was June and beautiful and up until the end the trip had been a rousing success. ( I feel like the best way to see if you are compatible with another human being is to go somewhere neither of you can communicate and see if you don’t end up killing each other out of pure frustration stemming from your combined incompetence.) It’s fortunate we are both big drinkers and Spain with its 26% unemployment rate seems to be perfect made for people slovenly drunk all day. Mas cervezas por favor.
It was our last day there and after renting a car and traversing almost the entire country ourselves we decided to channel our inner senior citizen and signed up for a bus tour that would take us to Gibraltar for the day.
We were excited to spend a day not having to navigate the illogical European round-about. We looked forward to a full English breakfast. Since Gibraltar is an English colony there was no shortage of English pubs and taverns complete with blood pudding and bangers and mash – we had a plan to eat, drink and shop our way through their duty-free marketplaces.
We arrived early in the morning and did, in fact, stuff ourselves with eggs and baked beans and brown bread all washed down with several healthy bloody marys. We decided next to make our way up to the top of the rock – you can’t say you’ve been somewhere with a giant rock if you don’t at least attempt to take picture from the top of it. We handed over a couple Euros to ride a cable car up and as soon as we arrived at the top we were greeted by the monkeys that live there.
Side note: they aren’t really monkeys at all but rock apes (monkeys without tails are called apes). Apparently there is a legend that says that Britain will hold the rock as long as there are apes living on the top of it – to this end the British are constantly importing African monkey-apes to keep the rock stocked. These animals are malevolent and completely pissed off about being dragged from their homes to ensure British rule ( these alleged ‘facts’ where told to us by our tour guide leader and have in no way been researched or verified – the part about them being pissed off is my own conjecture from events that are about to unfold).
It was a warm spring day and I (as any good traveler should be) was dressed in layers. I had my suede jacket draped over my arm as we emerged from the cable car and almost immediately one of these angry monkey-apes charged at me and grabbed my jacket. Unwilling to lose my coat to a simian I pulled it back from his clutches, clearly only enraging him further because he then took it upon himself to climb up on me long enough to perch on my left shoulder and sink his teeth deeply into my elbow.
We had been on the rock of Gibraltar for exactly 37 seconds. The monkey having done what it set out to do, launched itself from my head ripping out a handful of hair as I yelled a certain expletive that made every child there that day start to cry.
Bleeding and unsure of the protocol in these situations I searched for the highest authority figure I could find – this ended up being the cashier in the gift shop (of course). I told her what happened and her surprisingly irate response was “what did you do to the monkey?”… Um. I hysterically calmly explained to her that I didn’t believe the monkey was the victim. She offered me a band aid and told me that’s all she could do.
I oscillated between wanting to continue with our plan of shopping and drinking or maybe seeing about getting a tetanus shot (I was suddenly in the mood for an ice cold Guinness). I didn’t want to be the ugly American who made a big deal about everything – maybe these monkeys bit people all the time.
In the end, my soon to be husband convinced me that we should seek out medical assistance. We made our way to the local hospital which resembled more of a day spa. A short ten minute wait and I met with an administrator who was visibly upset at having to charge me for their services (12 euros – 12 euros for an emergency room visit!) I considered asking them what other procedures I could get done while I was there – a 24 euro boob job or something… but unfortunately we were on a tight deadline. So I paid my money and got a tetanus shot and a lot of gauze and after hugs from all the hospital staff I had just enough time to chug down two ice cold Guinness drafts before meeting back up with our senior citizen entourage.
I left Spain the next day with no duty free good but enough antiseptic wipe to last a lifetime. I still have a scar on my elbow.
Merry Christmas everyone!
*editor’s note: I’m going to use the word Christmas several times throughout this post – it’s not politically correct and if you have a problem with this – I’m not really sure why you are here in the first place. This is the West Virginia Surf report. Please check your spelling of Virgin – you’ve probably clicked a wrong link.
**That’s kind of a lie – I secretly want you all to really, really like me.
ida seen if that monkey could fly off that rock
Bad monkey!
Awesome!
I’ve had a monkey on my back but never my elbow.
1). Monkeys hate suede. They should have covered that in the brochure for you.
2). Young male monkeys must prove they’re not afraid of humans by bringing back proof they made contact with their more advanced cousin. It’s a rite of passage thing. You got of light. Hair…meh. Lucky he didn’t rip your lips off…or run off with one of your tits.
3). I’d-a bit the little fucker back.
“**That’s kind of a lie – I secretly want you all to really, really like me.” …great story… thanks and yes.
Monkeys scare the bejesus out of me. I would probably be in therapy for life after that episode.
Terrific update!
Great update!
If you had a monkey and it was bad, would you spank him?
I spank my monkey when he is both good and bad.
The story had it all..Christmas, monkeys, beer, suede..excellent
I don’t think humans eveloved from monkeys, I think monkeys devolved from humans.
A band of jerks split off from the normal humans and figured out that if they neither wear cloths nor shave they could run around attacking people with impunity.
Damn dirty apes.
The monkey is still laughing at you: http://www.gibraltarmonkey.com
If that were me, that monkey would have had me bent over the rock while my boyfriend was frozen in laughter.
Monkeys hate suede but the love FMPs.
the funny (sad) part was : my boyfriend WAS frozen in laughter and missed the entire biting because he was looking for his camera…
Next time you are in Gibraltar, wear the corduroy jacket instead.
Fabulous post (and comments) indeed. Jeff, man, you better hurry back to your post. Aside from that–I’m glad you got the tetanus shot, but you are also damn lucky you didn’t get a joint infection from the bite to a joint area. And–monkeys have always kinda creeped me out.
I like the idea put forth in regard to devolution. Makes all kinda sense. Upon reflection, this process is often what the battle we are fighting with our children is in reality all about–do they want to grow up to be human or do they want to end up throwing their shit all over the place….
lol – nicely done Bec!
Thanks everyone for all of the great comments! I appreciate all the support from fellow surf reporters 🙂
Very good. =-)
Stupid monkeys.
Why do monkeys hate suede so much?…I heard someone ask from the back of the class..I can answer that.
Suede was a highly valued commodity centuries ago. The “Suede Trade” was a miserable world that employed theving monkeys along a vast trade network stretching from Gibralter to Nepal. Monkeys stealing suede by whatever means to avoid being sold off to southeast Asains. The monkeys were a visious union of biters and scratchers. In fact…Hannibal chose the Alps (he loved suede and outfitted his men and even two of his favorite elephant in it) just to avoid the known route of the Suede Traders across much of northern Italy. One day, the monkeys decided they had enough and sought scantuary in the many temples of Tibet. Modern day Gibraltar monkeys still resent the sight of suede reminding them of how their ancestors suffered.
Wasn’t the Ikea monkey decked out in some form of lamb suede?
Keen eye Not Oprah. That monkey was found out later to be a part of a Basque separatists splinter sect whose ancestors belonged to rich sheep herders. Many Basque moved to America and settled in northern New Mexico and still dress their monkeys in traditional lamb suede.
Thanks for clearing that up!
i hate monkeys, but really liked this story.
I’ve been to Gibraltar once, and the girl I was there with was bitten by one of those Barbary apes. They are vicious little fuckers.