Monkey See, Monkey Do... Monkey Drink

First, time to toot my own horn - bicycle horn, that is. My previous entry about my Hubway experience was published! The writing will be awfully familiar, but the exciting part is all the way at the bottom, where I get author credit.

Anyway, onto what you came here for - monkeys drinking alcohol.

Vervet monkeys were positively everywhere in Kenya, which is why this video is especially funny to me (...and BONUS - this being a BBC video, it is educational as well). There was one who frequently invaded our kitchen and classroom, that we had to shoo away before he stole our snacks, or worse, our dinner.

While on safari, we went to this lovely resort in the middle of the day, when it's too hot and the larger animals are all quite lazy. They had a gorgeous pool, from which you could watch animals sleeping under the trees, and just as important, an enormous buffet full of food we'd all been missing from home.

Anyway, while there, I was about to take a bite of my sandwich when I noticed one of these little guys rapidly approaching. I tried our shooing tactic that worked on the vervets living in our camp, meaning I yelled in its face. Without batting a tiny little Vervet eyelash, the monkey very thoughtfully grabbed my arm with one hand, the sandwich with the other arm, running only about ten feet away so I could watch him enjoy what should have been mine.

Aside from my complete disbelief at what had just happened, I was very thankful I had avoided a monkey bite - both because I remember those really hurting in elementary school and because I'd opted out of the rabies shot not covered by insurance until after you've been bitten. Go figure.

Either way, it doesn't surprise me one bit that their counterparts in the Caribbean are sniping cocktails!