More Fun Than a Barrel of Monkeys

So, I just got back from stupid Walmart, and I made a few purchases for myself that may seem strange. Even the check-out lady asked me, “Aw, I remember these. Are they for your grandchildren?”

“No. I don’t have grandchildren yet.” That sort of pissed me off. Fifty-five year old people are too young to have grandchildren. And besides, I don’t look a day over thirty. My class tells me that all of the time, so I know it to be true.

“Oh, you’re a teacher?”  Nib shit wanted an answer. I was in the mood to mess with her.

“No. They are for me……I never was allowed to play with toys when I was little……. I can afford them now.”  I tried to deliver the line like Bob Newhart, my idol, with a hint of Ellen DeGeneres, my other idol.  The man behind me in line cracked up. Ahhh, someone in this town understands snark.

Anyway, I brought home a fun game of my youth:  Barrel of Monkeys. I guess you knew that was coming by my title. Can’t fool you guys. I wanted to write a blog post on games we baby boomers played, but thought, “Why, hell, Vickie, buy the damn thing, and take pictures of how stupid you look playing with it.”

Inspiration for my next blog post

For those of you who don’t know what the hell I am talking about, Barrel of Monkeys is a game that was brought to store shelves by Lakeside Toys in 1965. I guarantee you that I had this as soon as it came out. I was nine years old and my mom bought anything in sight in order to find something that would keep me occupied for more than 20 seconds. It’s hard to entertain hyperactive Mexican jumping beans.

Apparently, the idiom, “more fun than a barrel of monkeys,” was the inspiration for the game.  I just really don’t understand how people start idioms, because why would monkeys shoved in a barrel be fun? I mean, wouldn’t the damn monkeys be so claustrophopic and pissed to high hell, that when released from the barrel, would start attacking and perhaps chew someone’s face off or something?  So, to me, “more fun than a barrel of monkeys” should be a sarcastic remark, to be used, for example, at say, Grandpa’s funeral.

“Well, this is more fun than a barrel of monkeys.” See, makes sense.

Years ago, sometime during the 1950′s, Dave Garroway, host of The Today Show, asked, “What’s more fun than a barrel of monkeys?”  A huge barrel was rolled out onto the stage. Garroway released them and they climbed the curtains, ran out into the audience, climbed on top of the cameras,  and just generally wrecked havoc on the set.  See, once again, sarcastic idiom. Monkeys in a barrel are not flippin fun.

So, fast forward to 2012. I opened up the barrel, all excited, because I have not played with the little plastic simians since my children played with it for ten minutes when they were young. And it was for that long, only because I just brought it home, and made them play.

“It is not boring. Look, hook the monkeys and see how many you can get………Well, they have to be in a pile or it is hard to hook their arms……It is not boring……….I played with this a LOT when I was little……………….What do you mean?  I had more things to play with.”

Ok, didn’t last long. I’m sorry, but I just can’t see this being a top seller in 2012. But, I was still excited to play with it once again.I opened up the barrel to find 14 red plastic monkeys in a plastic bag. The plastic bag had warnings in 19 different languages:

“To avoid danger of suffocation, keep this bag away from babies, and children. DO NOT use in cribs, beds, carriages, or playpens.”

Found a loophole. You can put the bag on their high chair.

According to the instructions that did NOT come with the game,  each game contains a “barrel” which is filled with brightly-coloured plastic monkeys with “S” shaped arms.  Players must dump the monkeys on the table or other even surface and the objective of the game is to hook all the monkey’s arms together to form a chain.  A player’s turn ends when the chain is broken. (I got this from their web site, as they neglected to put instructions in the barrel.)

So, what if a person from a foreign country or like, Zanesville, Ohio, opened the barrel only to find just what I did: monkeys in a plastic bag and that is all. Are they to assume that they know what the hell they are supposed to do with them?

Once out of the little barrel, what would you do with the monkeys since there were no instructions?

And the directions are where?

The monkeys would run amok, just like they did in my townhouse.

Messing with my tv, demanding to watch Planet of the Apes.

Messing with my cat, Whiskers, who roared like a lion to scare them. (No, she is not yawning. She is roaring).

They totally messed with a couple of my Words With Friends games, clicking on the ”resign” button when I was clearly beating the hell out of my opponents.

Then I caught them trying to escape, out into the Wild Wonderful West Virginia woods.

Quit flushing the toilet, you stupid monkeys.

I don’t know what the hell they were doing here, but I did find jello with bananas in the refrigerator. One of the monkeys must have decided to swim in the cherry liquid, because it is now hardened up to his neck. I promptly closed the door. (Pictures are too graphic.)

Helping themselves to some mango juice.

Attacking the cat from another angle

They got into my pill compartment thingy that I received as a gag gift for my 5oth birthday, but I use anywho. Two of the monkeys overdosed. You have no idea how hard it is to give CPR to plastic.

They got entangled in my floss and I don’t even want to know what the hell they did with my toothbrush.

Oh, that is just wrong! Get the hell out of the kitty litter box!

Ok, monkeys! That’s the last straw! No really. That’s the last straw.

I found all 14 monkeys and put them back in the barrel.

It was more fun taking pictures of them than actually playing the game. What’s fun with hooking monkey arms?

In the end, this game was great in 1965. I learned to be more patient, since I was a hyper little urchin.

But, in 2012……

it was great. Well, only if you had a camera and followed them around because there were no freaking instructions in the barrel.

 Where the hell did this blue one come from?

I really did have more fun than a barrel of monkeys.

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