"A love affair"

by Lu Hall.

"Hey Mom can we get a monkey?" our young daughter asked one day in late Nov. And again the next day, and the next...my husband and I had recently expanded a "home" pet shop enterprise into a full time job. We had bought and remodeled a building, I left my good state job, and we were "Pet store owners"..

I, and my four children, were always animal lovers, but my recently acquired second husband, John, had to learn a few things before he could see and enjoy, the wonder of pet ownership. The only pet he had ever had in his house was one little dog. "Who never messed in the house"

Now Pam wanted a monkey; who doesn't want one, they are such cute, little guys and surely not much trouble. Why all they require is a small cage, a few bananas and peanuts and a little time to "train" it.

After much crying and promising "I'll take care of it, I'll clean the cage everyday,etc." John and I decided to order one little squirrel monkey from a wholesale distributor in Florida. For Christmas- for all four kids. Right--they shared so well.....never the less, we ordered one little monkey.

We, four kids, John and I had to go to St Louis airport to pick her up.
She was in a cardboard shipping crate and stunk terrible, she had a piece of apple and a filthy piece of rag in with her. I didn't want to let her out until we got home and could clean her up. Well if you've ever set a box with a monkey in it in the back seat of a van with four kids, you know how long she stayed in the box.

Once out of the box she squeaked and squealed, ran in circles and pooped all over. (a monkeys first line of defense) Then four kids are squealing "get off me", "Mom help" "Icky" "she stinks" "you wanted a stupid monkey"......

She finally got close enough to me that I could grab her and she promptly bit the heck out of two fingers. But I bravely, she was so tiny, held on to her and got her snuggled up against my body and flipped my sweater up over her. After a few minutes she settled down and seemed to be sleeping. I carefully lifted the sweater up, gazed down at her and FELL in LOVE.

She was almost orange, brown hair with tips of gold, a tiny little elf face, a miniature little person. Small marvelous hands with delicate black fingernails, I felt like a new mother checking the baby for all its parts..

Thus begun our life with Bobbie, she was never my daughters monkey, after the messy episode in the van none of the kids would claim her. But she wrapped John and my hearts around her little finger and held on to us for over 24 years.

We got other monkeys, our next was our sweet java girl "Sweetie Pie" and that's another story.....

But Bobbie was the first and thus begun a love affair with monkeys that has lasted and taken over our life for over a quarter of a century. We are Blessed...