Once upon a time a man ordered a bunch of monkeys from the Philippines. This man was a scientist and wanted to poke and prod the monkeys with his implements of experimentation. When the monkeys arrived the scientist was as excited as a scientist could get. He got a crowbar and began opening the crates full of monkeys. The fresh monkeys would spring out into the awaiting cages. There, they would rattle around a bit and defecate all over themselves. Soon their skull caps would be sloughed off so that electrodes could be attached to their puny monkey brains.

But one crate was unusually quiet. No monkey screams came from within. No monkey urine spilled from its sides and no monkey paws grasped feebly at the air holes. There was something very wrong with this crate full of monkeys. Yes something very wrong indeed. When the scientist opened the crate, no monkeys popped out of the top and into the cages. The scientist peered slowly over the top of the crate. To his disappointment, all of the monkeys were dead. These monkeys were expired, he thought to himself. The scientist grunted in disgust at the sight of the defective monkeys and kicked the crate with his bony and weak scientist legs.

Then the scientist put on his gloves and picked up the limp monkeys one by one, turning them over in his hands. Yes all these monkeys were dead all right. Stupid monkeys. Many of them were stiff. They must have been dead shortly after the time of shipping. And not only were they all dead, but they were all bloody as well. Blood dripped from their eye sockets, their noses and all their monkey orifices. Stupid dead monkeys.

The scientist then crammed them into a refrigerated crate and mailed them all off to the CDC. Soon after the scientist learned that all the monkeys had monkey Ebola. This terrified the scientist because he knew that there was usually nothing to distinguish monkey Ebola from human Ebola. Luckily though this was just little primate Ebola and not big hairless primate Ebola, otherwise we'd all be dead.

There is however a barrel of stiff monkeys that will not bring the risk human extinction. And that barrel of monkeys is actually none other than "Barrel of Monkeys," the popular children's toy. It's not really a game, because these monkeys don't do anything, there is no ultimate goal. There are no winners and no losers with barrel of monkeys. You can string them all over the place. They attach to one another and dangle from their monkey arms like real monkeys. Not as fun as real, healthy monkeys, but much less disease ridden and filthy overall, barrel of monkeys is a viable alternative to the real thing.

I love monkeys. Is their anything they can't do?




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