Lately, I've begun to feel guilty about some of my posts. People already have a high anxiety level about all the changes in the world, and here I am adding fuel to the fire. My intentions were good. I wanted to bring a little information to the public…timely information wrapped in a little levity so that things wouldn't seem so scary. But now I don't know. The whole game has changed.
I'm talking about this monkey scare in St. Louis. A gang of vervet monkeys, possibly composed of up to four individuals, may or may not have been terrorizing the community. I know what you're thinking. If we lived in sub-Saharan Africa, there would be gangs of monkeys confronting us every day, and we wouldn't think anything about it. Just par for the course over there. We expect the unexpected in exotic places like sub-Saharan Africa and Bayonne, New Jersey.
But I'm talking about middle America here. I don't think St. Louis, or Missouri in general, can cope with something of this nature. They are a kind and forgiving bunch in Missouri, and are wholly unprepared to deal with a situation like this.
But it gets worse. The monkeys may have been in the company of a goat. It is impossible to overestimate the seriousness of this situation. I don't know how you bring levity into that kind of story.
I mentioned that the monkeys may or may not be jumping around in trees and startling the citizenry, while the goat makes threatening bleating noises. But authorities aren't sure the monkey reports are real. There are plenty of reports online, and even videos of the primate outlaws. But these days, anything can be turned into a video.
I saw a video on YouTube that claimed to be of Ariana Grande shaving Cynthia Erin's head with a pocketknife. There was even a slight sheen on the shaving gel Ariana was rubbing on Cynthia's scalp, so for a second I bought into the whole thing. Then I saw that the hand holding the knife had six fingers and a 32nd Degree Masonic ring, and I went, "Whoa." So I've decided to be a lot more suspicious of what I see online.
I still don't know if the monkey story is real or a fake. Maybe I'd research it more if I had to go to St. Louis in the near future. The only reason I can think of for going there is to ride the tiny pods to the top of the Gateway Arch. I did that once, though, and once is probably enough for one lifetime.
I sincerely hope the monkey terror in St. Louis turns out to be a hoax. I suppose it’s just the tip of the iceberg, though.
My wife had already announced that she would no longer believe anything online. We discussed this the other day, long before the monkeys began terrorizing a major metropolitan area. She is very astute, so I wasn't surprised when she became totally paranoid before I did. I'm on board now, though, and we will be burning our iPhones and moving off the grid in central Idaho next month. To prove it, here is a picture of me bashing my desktop computer with a hammer. Please disregard the Masonic ring on my extra pinky finger.