"Mischief"

by Kendra Lester

Part 5 - Dining with Ms. Manners

For the most part Mischief and her winning ways were easily woven into the fabric of our lives.  She became as important to us as we were to her. Everyday brought new horizons and new experiences, each milestone a stepping stone for the next experience.  Even during her worst fits, fears and fights, I tried to understand what made her react and then learn to work around either her reaction to an event or thing, or to limit her exposure to said event or thing.

I know she never truly got over her fear of being without food for she still hoarded whenever possible. When I brought groceries home she would race to the table, little monkey hands into everything. Trying to touch, taste and swipe everything all at once. If she got her hands on it, she had to take a bite of it. In fact once it included her taking a bite out of every potato in the sack. Each potato sporting fresh little monkey bites in each one, bitten then tossed away. I was not too impressed by her grocery help and made a note that in the future she did not need to be in the kitchen when I put away groceries. 

One day I had some friends from work over.  They already thought my animal rescuing was an insane thing to be involved in.  And they made it clear that they could not for the life of them figure out why I would want to have a "filthy" monkey living in my home. Keeping this in mind, I though introducing them to Mischief in her home, while she was being a semi good girl, would if not entice them into wanting one of their own, might at least let them understand how loving and endearing they can be.

I dressed Mischief in her Sunday best, a crinoline, lacey dress with matching panties covering her diapered bottom. I scrubbed her adorable little face and made sure she smelled Johnson baby fresh.  While she hated baths and would fight like a demon to avoid one. She never once protested a wash cloth being used on her body, and even allowed warm soapy water used on her. I added a spritz of roses cologne and laughed as she pat it into her coat and then sat there preening and primping.

I spent the rest of the day, cooking homemade lasagna, using four kinds of cheeses and simmering the sauce all day. I had even gone so far as to hand make the pasta hoping to impress them with my Betty Crocker feats. When the lasagna was finished, I placed it the refrigerator to cool. Ms. Mischief was played with her doll and eyed me every once in a while, but made no move to get into anything, being an absolute angel. When I turned from the table to the sink, to clean up the cooking mess, she promptly went to the refrigerator, opened the door and ran her greedy little hands down into the lasagna. She chirped as she pulled out a big, stringy, glob of gooey cheese and dripped an enormous splattery mess on the floor.  Now, no matter how clean your kitchen is, no matter how neat you keep your monkey; no one wants to share his or her food with one. The astonished gasps I heard from the front room told me we had not impressed our company with our Ms. Manners act.  In fact I was pretty sure if I had fed them lasagna for dinner, even if I had removed the parts she had handled, they would have gagged, their stomachs in revolting protest.  So my fancy dinner entrée ended up being replaced by takeout pizza. I will confess to being a spiteful monkey mother as I served her highness lasagna for next three or four meals. In fact the last time I tried she just smelled it, turned her back and ignored me. Feeling just a tad guilty I relinquished and got her something else to eat.  Well you win some and lose some.

The next time Ms Mischief was introduced to someone, it was under less than ideal circumstances. My living room had a step up alcove with beveled, French windows and frilly, lace curtains; sitting in front of it was my love seat. Mischief had the dreadful habit of playing hide and seek when strangers came over and one of her favorite places was under the curtains, behind the love seat. So when company came in, she usually scooted there until she deemed it safe to come out.   Behind the love seat sat a fifty-gallon aquarium on a custom oak stand, housing two enormous Mexican iguanas, Pandora and Octavius Agustus. On the left wall stood a massive wall to ceiling bookcase looking piece of furniture, that was in actuality, a custom built snake box, housing boas and pythons; Charmaine, Gabrielle, Mahayia and Bartholomew.  These boxes were padlocked, enclosed with Plexiglas fronts, and kept covered whenever Mischief was out and about.  The area separating the kitchen from the living room had another fifty-gallon aquarium that housed a rebellious three-ft. caiman, named Cuddles.  So to anyone even the least squeamish about reptiles this was crawling nightmare come to life.

Anyway this evening a girl friend of mine dropped by to visit and her new boyfriend was with her.  She had for some reason forgotten to tell him about the mélange of animals I lived with. This young man came in and as she introduced us, began to look around with huge eyes.  Though he couldn't see the snakes in detail, their backlit bodies were outlined behind the sheets as they slithered purposely round their cages. The caiman thrashing and splashing in his watery domain, looking more like a menace than a pet.  Then to top it all off as he took his seat in the love seat, he spotted the iguanas lashing their tails around, hissing with dewlaps flared.  They were hissing at Mischief who loved to torment them, but he had no earthly idea of this.  So he sat on the edge of his seat, hands trembling and his voice quaking as he tried to make small talk to what was obviously a crazy person.

The mother to the dragons of hell and Medusa's crew.  Then Mischief decided it was time to introduce herself and the way she loved best to do this, was to snake a hand out from behind the love seat and feel your face.  Well I am not sure if he thought one of the snakes had gotten out and was coiling around him, or that he feared an even more menacing demon lived behind the couch, like a distant relative of Nessie or Bigfoot.  But when that ebony hand closed over his face, he jumped straight up, screaming and running for the door.  His date left forgotten, still sitting on the couch.  The last we saw of him was his taillights as he squalled out of my driveway, rounding the corner, nearly on two wheels.  Both of us sat looking at each other in stunned silence and then laughter over took us, as tears streamed down our face, it was one of those Candid Camera moments and no one had a camera.  I do know that he never called her again and to this day I have no idea what he thought had him. I sure hope the tales he tells are not of evil things that live behind my sofa.  I am sure at least that he didn't report me for having aliens in my house, as no FBI agents ever came knocking.

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