I'm sure by now you've heard the horrendous story about the guy in Ohio who had a wild animal preserve on his property and how he went a crazy and let all those poor animals out before killing himself, when he probably knew full well that there was no way the authorities were going to be able to safely tranquilize all those animals and that they would all likely have to be killed. I heard a news story on the radio about this, and I was getting more and more outraged with a state system so broken it would allow an insane person to own 50 exotic animals, because obviously the animals were the victims of this guy and this system. I was super pissed off about it, actually, and then suddenly, the radio reporter included a detail so absurd, I immediately had to call Stephan and tell him about it, and we are still laughing about this even now. Let's be clear– it's still a horrendous situation, not funny at all, but this one detail pushes it into the absurd/ baroque, so that is what I'm going to share.
You guys. I guess one of the monkeys was still loose as of last night, and the most salient point of information that the reporter wanted to communicate was this:
If you see the monkey, please don't try to subdue the monkey, because THE MONKEY HAS HERPES.
Wow, just…..so much going on here, really. First of all, the State of Ohio knows that the monkey has herpes, but they didn't think a guy who kept getting the police called on him and just got out of prison for having five machine guns was eventually going to snap and hurt the 50 animals he was holding on his property? Great.
Then I have to move on to the news report….where do I even start with this? Don't try to catch a monkey if you see it, ok? It does not matter if that monkey has herpes, and frankly, I'm not even sure why that is relevant, and I feel like I want to act as legal counsel for that monkey, because now everybody knows that monkey's business, and doesn't that monkey have any rights? Geez Louise, people! WHY does that monkey have herpes?
No, you know what? I don't want to know. Let's just say it's generally a bad idea to try to catch a monkey under any circumstances. GET AWAY FROM THAT MONKEY.
And speaking of monkeys (how often do you get to use THAT phrase, huh? Use it in a sentence today. I dare you.), I just found out that I am actually friends with the person whose family is the subject of this documentary, and that she grew up with a chimp named Nim Chimpsky. No word as to whether Mr. Chimpsky carried the herpes virus or if he was ever tackled by an over-eager passerby. I'm told he was a perfect gentleman.
