Me and My Monkey

This monkey was posing for pictures on the sidewalk on my last night in Thailand (down in one of the southern provinces that got whacked by the tsunami, a few days after the wave hit - I know, great timing...). There were two little blonde Swiss kids there with their dad taking pictures with it when I got close. They eventually finish, we come up, and the young thai kid with the camera hands me the monkey, then hops on his moped and takes off! So, I'm left standing there with this thing for about 10 minutes, and we have no idea where the guy went or if he's even coming back (maybe I should've brushed up on some thai phrases before we got there...) No idea what to do, we wait... and the monkey's kind of sitting in my folded hands, with his back to me, and keeps looking back ominously and reaching his little claws up around my neck... The whole time he's eyeballing me and showing his teeth... (I of course tried to pet him, because I'm stupid, and think I can pet all kinds of strange animals and have to touch plates when people tell me they're hot...)

Finally, after a high-noon stare-down between me and this monkey that would've made the outlaw Josie Wales break out in a cold sweat, the thai kid shows back up - he'd apparently gone off to get more film - so crisis averted, stand down! The guy finally takes the picture (of course cutting off 1/2 of me in the process - fortunately my buddy snapped this one with his digital) and we head to an outdoor restaurant down the street to get our eats on. (And yes, Ma, I washed my hands! A couple of times, actually, that primate was grungy.)

A few minutes later, the father of those kids comes up to us and asks us if the monkey bit us! Urgh?! Confused, we said "No, but..." It turned out that the monkey had bitten his son on the cheek - right under his eye! - right before we got there to take a picture with him. The dad goes "It didn't break the skin. It's probably alright, no?" So, we tell him we're not doctors, but that he might want to get it checked out anyway...

Personally, if I'm in Southeast Asia, it's 5 days after a tsunami just wrecked the area, the TV news is blaring repeated warnings about malaria, typhus, and other contagious diseases spreading in the stagnant waters, and a nasty, flea-bitten street urchin of a monkey bites my kid under his eye, I'm heading over to one of the 8,000 clinics that dot the landscape here and getting it checked out - wouldn't you?

Monkeys- sinister creatures of pure, unadulterated evil, forces for good, or simply innocent, benign forest denizens? You decide...