What is furry and will rip your head off and throw it down a hill?
A monkey.
I put a small plastic bag full of cookies in my pocket. We were headed to the world-famous Monkey Forest in Ubud, Bali - a section of woods where 800 billion macaque monkeys live and harass tourists like me. They aren’t in cages. You just walk into the woods with them.
We arrived at the park and wandered into the forest. The little gray bastards were everywhere. I couldn’t wait to pull out the cookies so they would come to us. Anything for Instagram.
I didn’t even get the damn cookies out of my pocket before a huge bastard was on my ass biting me and tearing through my pants. The beast knew I had cookies inside my pocket before I even pulled them out. A damn psychic monkey.
He was as big as a king-size pillow and as fast as the metaverse.
Shit, backfire.
Note to the reader: You DO NOT want to get bitten by a monkey. The number one reason for emergency clinic visits in Ubud, Bali is monkey bites on dumb tourists. Sure, they can rip your arms off but a bite is the worst.
The monkey ripped at my pockets with his terrifying little hands and bit through my pocket for the cookies. A gaggle of other monkeys started racing towards me. Another one scampered down the tree to my right.
Oh God, I am a dead man.
The sign in the Monkey Forest has four guidelines:
1. Do not look the monkeys in the eyes
2. No plastic bags allowed
3. Do not touch the monkeys
4. Do not feed the monkeys candy or cookies
Whoops.
Here’s the deal. I’m the guy who takes a footlong subway sandwich in the water with me when I go snorkeling to draw the fish to me. Less work on my part. Same with cookies and monkeys.
Chum the water.
Well, I just chummed the water and the cute little sweet monkeys turned into man-eating beasts.
My buddy stumbled backward as I tried relentlessly to keep the beasts at bay while pulling the bag of cookies out of my pocket. My plan was to toss it far, far away to avoid mutilation.
They were coming from everywhere.
Peddling backward and punching at the monkeys, I created some space. It was round one of a UFC fight and I was losing.
Eventually, I got the bag out of my pocket and tossed it to the monkeys. They tore it apart and fought over the cookies. Then they sat down and just stared at me.
Ew.
That’s the thing about life. You never really know what is going to happen, do you?
Cheers!
Trey