Replies

I like it...sounds like a semi-universal kid experience, at least from days where kids did that.

I spent a few years in the Philippines as a kid, and our houses lined a stretch of jungle that dropped off on an incline. They had the baboons of some kind that had enormous canines just like a nasty ass dog, and those baboons would travel in a group of about 15 or 20 at a time.

They would go along the edge of the jungle from house to house, with about twenty yards of grass between the jungle and the house, eating those little bananas off the trees or scrounging food that people threw to them. The females would often have babies clinging to them, and there was always at least one (rarely two) big, aggressive male.

And they weren’t cuddly. They were really aggressive and mean, extremely taut, and faster than hell. They were about the size of a medium sized lab, maybe 30-50 lbs I would guess from memory.

Me and my buddies would do things like empty the insides out of eggs through a small hole, then toss the empty eggs to them, which pissed them off. It was like putting a stick into a hornet’s nest. One day, I was at the kid next door’s house, and we sprayed some Raid on a piece of Wonder Bread, walked down from the 2nd story kitchen via back stairs, and at the bottom, and threw it out to the “monkeys” as we called them.

When we did, this big male started aggressively clearing the area of his mates as he jogged over to the bread. He made little charges at them, whacked others with his arms or hands, bared his teeth, and they all flew from him. He picked up the bread and snarled.

And instantly made a beeline right for us at the bottom of the stairs. There was no looking around to see who thew it out there, or to decide if we were guilty or innocent. He just snarled and ran on all fours, faster than a dog, with his teeth bared.

We both bolted up the stairs, barely getting inside and closing the door, before he was right there, his chest heaving as he glared malevolently at us.

I never messed with them ever again. I nearly crapped my pants. We were just stupid, dumb boys, doing typical stupid, young, boy stuff.

Years later, my mother told me a story I found far more interesting.

She was a Navy wife, and there was one woman (who was married to a Captain) who had a flagpole on her house that could be seen from all the other houses on the ridge. Her house was down below. When she raised a certain flag she had made, all the other wives in the neighborhood (or at least the ones who traveled in that crowd) would take a walk down for an afternoon drink together when they saw that flag raised.

One day, those Navy wives were having their afternoon Happy Hour, and the woman who lived there (I seem to recall her name was Maxine McDaniels) said to the other women “Watch this!” as she plucked a wooden banana out of a decorative bowl. It was all painted up and looked like a banana, and she walked out the back door to the steps that descended to the ground, and threw the wooden banana out to the gaggle of monkeys milling about.

She immediately went back inside, because she was a lot older and smarter than I was.

Well, that monkey ran over, picked up that banana, and started screeching as it waved it above its head in the air.

All the wives were looking out a big glass picture (maybe six feet by four feet) window at this enraged monkey, when it dashed towards the house and scampered up a tree growing right next to the window. It scurried out on a branch right near the window, and began bashing the window with that wooden banana.

My mother said they were all backing away from the window, thinking that baboon was going to come right through it. Yep. Navy wives and alcohol always seemed to be a potent combination.