The Great Sri Lankan Monkey Incident of 2014

As promised, here’s the harrowing monkey tale…

As you’ll recall, we were all set for a nice afternoon relaxing.  AB was going to color, I was going to have what I can only imagine would have been the best beer of the trip so far (probably not true), and Amanda was setting up her spa appointment.

First step was setting up AB (also known as “the bait”) on the balcony.  I then set out my beer and a glass for my part of the afternoon and headed back into the room.  Amanda was on the phone trying to decide on her relaxation package.

All of a sudden, a blood curdling scream comes from the balcony.  It’s AB and she starts running into the room.  My first inclination is obviously that she had found out I had filled in one of the pages to her book and I was in trouble.  No, don’t be silly, my first thought was, “Oh, sh!t, MONKEYS!”.

There’s he is.  A monkey on the table where AB was drawing…and he wants into the room.  Amanda was able to slam the phone down and then slam the door shut before the invasion could occur.  We then sat in abject horror while a team of monkeys began the systematic destruction of our nicely planned afternoon. 

It started with the monkey squad tearing apart AB’s awesome dry-erase princess coloring book and marker.  They must have a lack of fiber in their diet, because that book didn’t last long.  One would check the book out all over…tear off a piece to enjoy…then take another look.  They passed it around and it was eventually dropped into the abyss below.  I didn’t check, but I imagine it was like the river scene from Indiana Jones where people fall to their doom into the crocodile infested river below. 

Then, onto my beer.  My precious, unopened, local, strong, beer that I had been looking forward to for the entire day.  One of the monkeys (meagerly) attempted to open the can.  Sure, monkeys have opposable thumbs, but those dummies won’t be able to take over the world until they can actually crack open a cold one, turn on the football game, and pass out at halftime with one hand down their pants.  Oh…wait…maybe we’ve actually DEvolved…  We should be worried.

Back to the story.  Given his unsuccessful attempt, the monkey knocked the beer off the table and proceeded … to pee all over it.  Good lord, what kind of world are we in!?  The presumed mastermind of the attack then showed up to inspect the beer.  He gave it the old college try, but was also unsuccessful.  However; he did proceed to have relations with a female from the group right in front of our eyes.  Luckily for us, I think he needed that liquid courage to actually perform in front of strangers…and he gave up shortly thereafter.  THOSE DAMN, DIRTY MONKEYS!

Having gone through everything on the balcony they could, the monkey squad moved down to their next unsuspecting victims and we were finally free from their wrath.  After about 10 minutes, I went out to the balcony in a hazardous materials suit (okay, it was just a couple of towels) and opened up my beer.  Don’t worry, Amanda convinced me to not drink it.  However; I did pour it out and leave it for the monkeys for later.  A goodwill gesture of sorts.

The ol’ leader of the pack did, in fact, come back later.  After giving the beer a good sniff he dipped his hand in and gave it a try.  He must have preferred some local arrack and decided he’d pass on finishing the beer.  What a shame.

The fallout from the incident wasn’t too bad.  Turns out the beer was probably not very good (based on the monkey taste-test).  Amanda still got her spa treatment scheduled.  And Annabelle’s demands were only that we get a replacement book when we get back to the US.  Well, one for her and one for her cousin Chloe Grace.