Whatever happened to the monkey man? I remember the short-lived hysteria he plagued upon the people of India, bounding from rooftop to rooftop terrorizing the threadbare villages, resulting in the deaths of those too afraid to stay in their homes. The monkey man was hysteria in India, and Hysterical in America.

Now, do not get me wrong, there is nothing funny about being afraid, and, I find no humor or satisfaction in the death of the innocent. Nevertheless, I have a hard time hiding the pleasure I received when the entire country actually believed that a half-man/half monkey was jumping from rooftop to rooftop attempting to steal their children. What would a hybrid monkey man want with human children?  If I were an animal hybrid, I probably would not be a monkey man; there is something disturbing about possessing the desire to fling my own feces. Even the idea of holding my feces in my hand, regardless of my purpose is a repugnant thought.

As a child, I would have elected to be half-man half cheetah, and if not a cheetah one of the numerous fleet footed animals. Growing up fat and slow was a detriment I would have rather avoided. As a young boy I was given the nickname “Twinkie”, I am still unsure as to when the name originated, sometime during baseball season at the age of nine is my best guess. The name served a dual meaning: the inherent understanding that I enjoyed my fare share of sugar sweet snacks, which most assuredly enabled me to acquire the girth I casually jiggled around. Secondly, I was as close to an albino as one could be without actually being one. I was soft and yellow with bleach blond hair, my body was shaped like a zeppelin, and so you can see how the name “Twinkie” would stick so easily.

When I reached puberty, I began to grow into my body, up instead of out, and the extra weight I carried as a child turned into muscle. I shed the demeaning nicknames, like the flabby flesh that erstwhile hung from my skin. I naturally took my new body and used it as effectively as I could, achieving my top running speed with an incredible amount of self-satisfaction. By puberty, I would no longer have needed to be half man half cheetah. Although, I am sure the kids would have found a way to make fun of the spots.

In the years of my teen life, being fleet of foot meant very little to me, I gather I’d have rather been a half-man half-pig during the years leading into my twenties. I see how this seems hypocritical considering my childhood dream was to escape from my weight. Moreover, although I made the claim that I wanted to be a pig, it was not the aesthetic characteristics of the pig I was referring to; as it was not the aesthetic characteristics of the cheetah I had hoped to obtain. In actuality, the sexual prowess and libido of a pig is second to no other animal in the natural world. A pig has the ability to sustain an orgasm for over thirty minutes, and the desire to mate throughout the day. Contrary to what I told my parents, all I attempted to do during my teenage years was mate throughout the day. The extended orgasm would have padded my times in the sack which would have invariably added to my reputation as a great lover, which would have resulted in much more sex during my teen years, which would lead to more orgasms creating a domino effect of ecstasy that would have carried me into college.

Once in college it would have served me very well to be half-man half-cow. With four stomachs, it would have been a lot easier to digest the mundane small talk of most of my peers, the seething political agendas of the majority of my professors, the insurmountable debt obtained via the ease at which credit cards are given to college students, and the daunting nearly inedible food of the dining hall and student commons. The grinding action employed by the cows while eating grass would have surely reduced the charred meat and stale cereal my stomach often failed in digesting, or, even holding down. Though I doubt a cow would nurse from its own nipple, it would have been nice to have the choice of such a multitude of nipples during those lonely nights in the shared shoebox we called our dorm room, our home.

One final perk of being a half-man half-cow is that cows sleep standing up, so the neo ultra liberal, hemp and tye-dye laden, petruli oil wearing coeds would have thought I was a master of Yoga, which would have helped me escort them to my bed wherein I could have shown them my piggish side. Alas, this was not the case; I was not a half man half cow in college, though it would have been nice to have fresh milk at my disposal.

As a young entrepreneur out of college, I lacked the work ethic and determination of others my age. Though I was not adverse to hard work, or even long hours, I lost many the job due to a “lack of Motivation.” If only I could have been half-man half-worker bee. With the social skills necessary to remain a vital cog in such a large colony of peers, the sheer grit, stamina, and dedication of a worker bee might have skyrocketed my career into a stratosphere of luxury. Enabling me to obtain the monetary freedom I had always desired. Worker bees are relentless in their pursuit of accomplishment. Their entire lives are devoted to the evolution of the colony. They eat, sleep, and die for their team. From impregnating the queen, to building the hive, they are dedicated every moment of their life to the success of the colony, in my case the company. That is exactly what I needed to be when I was young and employed, more like the bee, and less like the jackass that I was. Though donkeys are hard workers, they are stoic and unmotivated when someone is not smacking a stick against their ass, so much like me it fails to be funny.

Now that I have been committed, I no longer wish to be any of these things. My life has been lived, and I am where I am because of the person I was, and continue to be. I am not a rich man, I am rarely if ever truly happy with myself when others are around. All I really want to do is watch T.V., read the newspaper, and go on the Internet, which I only recently learned to operate and navigate. If I had my way I would rather be left alone all of the time. I cannot seem to find a way to keep the busybodies out of my room here in the home. No matter how crude and bullish I become, they still return the next day to ask me to lunch, or to join them in a game or a puzzle. Can anyone see that my time alive with others has passed, and all I want to be is left alone? I am not a bitter misanthrope; I just prefer the company of nobody but myself. It is getting to the point where pleading and begging for solitude is like speaking to an outlet on a wall. I feel as though they leave me no recourse but to find a way to keep them out of my room for good, something drastic to get my point across for the final time.

            But, how?

            I wonder what the monkey man did to make people work so hard to stay away from him.

            Oh!

            Of Course!

By: Jason Kemppainen