Monkeys And Apes

1.
Apes are notorious gossips.  Monkeys, at least, will tell you off to your face.

2.
Many years ago, the apes of the East talked badly of the apes of the West, and vice versa.  Any time the subject of the other apes came up in either region, it was filled with suspicion and mythology, but in the vast middle of the continents, between the dissenting camps, the native apes who warred with them both just said, we don’t like any of you.  The monkeys thought this was hysterical.

3.
Monkeys and apes don’t get along.  Something about tails, the story goes…Gibbons sidestep the issue by having long arms.  They wave them like tails.  Some of the apes refuse to believe the gibbons are apes as a result.  So what, say the gibbons.  At least we aren’t baboons.

4.
It’s simple biology, say the apes.  Put a monkey in a room, the monkey will climb the walls, peel the paper off the walls.  That’s the beginning of literature, though, say the monkeys.  The apes sneer.  It’s just a mess, they say.

5.
Monkeys are cultured, dig boobies, drink milk by the gallon, watch Mel Gibson movies for tips on survival.  Apes prefer motorsports and bourbon, and the films of Ingmar Bergman, but only if they’re dubbed and not subtitled.

6.
A monkey sat on a couch and dreamed of airplane food.  An ape woke him up. I’m hungry, he said.  Cook me something.  Fuck you, said the monkey, piss off.  Do I look like a flight attendant?  I’m just a damn monkey, and I’m hungry myself.  But you don’t hear me asking you to cook for me.

7.
Apes and monkeys alike think humans ought to give up the evolution thing and get over it.  We’re insulted at the insinuation that we’re cousins, they say.  There’s no way we could be all related.  Except for the damn gibbons, maybe.